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PROCEEDINGS 



CONVENTION 



CALLED TO CONSIDER AND DISCUSS 



THE OYSTER QUESTION 



HELD AT THE 



RICHMOND CHAMBER OF COMMERCE, 



Richmond, Va., Jan. 12, 1894, 



PAPERS ISSUED IN CALLING THE CONVENTION. 



RICHMOND : 

.1. W. FERGUSSON A .SON, PRINTERS. 
1S94. 



J J Os 






CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 

Call for the Convention and Accompanying Papers.... 5-10 

Remarks of Hon. Geo. L. Christian, President of the Richmond Chamber 

of Commerce, in calling the Convention to order 11-12 

Address of Welcome by Hon. J. Taylor Ellyson, Mayor City of Richmond.. 12-13 

Permanent Organization of the Convention 13 

Delegates Registered at the Secretary's Desk -14-15 

Delegates who accepted Invitations, Not Registered 15-16 

Program of Proceedings 17 

Address of Capt. J. B. Baylor, of the U. S. Coast and Geodetic Survey 17-22 

Address of Henry C. Rowe, Esq., of New Haven, Conn 22-24 

Address of Lieut. Francis Winslow, of New Berne, N. C 24-30 

Address of Hon. Marshall McDonald, IT. S. Commissioner of Fish and 

Fisheries 30-32 

Address of Prof. W. K. Brooks, of the Johns Hopkins University, Balti- 
more, Md 33-37 

Address of Capt. Orris A. Browne, of Northampton County 38-40 

General Discussion of the Oyster Question by Judge Ewell, Alex. E. 
Warner, Judge Garnett, J. D. Armstrong, Judge Henley, J. F. Bone- 
well, Major Jed. Hotchkiss, W. McD. Lee, Capt. Browne and Lieut. 
Winslow , 40-47 



CALL FOR THE CONVENTION. 



In addition to a number of distinguished authorities upon the oyster question 
who were invited to address the Convention, over nine hundred invitations to 
participate in its proceedings were mailed to prominent citizens as well as to par- 
ties immediately interested in the question. The call was as follows: 

THE RICHMOND CHAMBER OF COMMERCE, 

December 18th, 1893. 

Dear Sir, — Yon are invited to attend the convention to be held in Richmond 
January 12th, 1894, called to consider and discuss the oyster question, to the end 
that such information may be elicited as to create an intelligent understanding 
and widespread interest in this subject, in which every citizen and tax-payer of 
the Stateas such is most deeply concerned. 

While it is not intended that this convention shall recommend any decided 
course of action, but that each body or section represented shall he free to take 
such action as it deems best after the convention, it is fully expected that the dis- 
cussion of the subject will bring forth the most important facts relating to the 
oyster question, stenographic reports of which will be printed in pamphlet form 
and constitute a valuable compendium of information on the subject. 

Your attention is asked to the accompanying papers, and your attendance on the 
occasion referred to is most earnestly requested, not only from a patriotic con- 
sideration on your part of the interest which your section has in this immensely 
valuable resource of Virginia, hut from the belief that, as a tax-payer, you will, 
in the end, he amply compensated for any time consumed or expense incurred by 
your attendance at this convention. 

Should circumstances beyond your control render it impossible for you to he 
present, you are requested to immediately confer with the most prominent and 
influential resident of your county whose consent you can secure to attend in your 
stead, and that you will promptly inform the Secretary of the Chamber, that an 
invitation may he extended to such person as you may designate. 

The convention will be held January 12th, 1894, in the assembly room of the 
Chamber of Commerce, corner of Ninth and Main streets. 

There will he invited as delegates to said convention prominent citizens from 
all sections of the Stat* — 

Representatives of the planters, dredgers and tongmen, and also the oyster 
inspectors from Tidewater Virginia. 

Representatives of the various commercial organizations throughout the State. 

Recognized authorities upon the question of oyster planting and those who 



PROCEEDING^ OF OYSTER CONVENTION. 

have given the subject especial attention, including judges of those counties of the 
state bordering upon the oyster-beds of Virginia. 

And such committees as the oyster law may be referred to by the present Gen- 
eral Assembly. 

Sincerely hoping that you will be able to attend, we have the honor to be 
Yours, very respectfully, &c, 

R. CARTER SCOTT, 

F. H. McGTJIRE, 

J. TAYLOR ELLYSON, 

LEVIN JOYNES, 

JOHN B. CARY, 

A. S. BUFORD, 

Committee on Legislation. 

GEORGE L. CHRISTIAN, 

President. 

R. A. DUN I. OR, Secretary. 



Together with the foregoing call, the subjoined documents were issued, the time 
for holding the convention suggested in the report of the Chamber's committee 
having been changed to January 12th, 1894, by authority of the Chamber: 

REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON LEGISLATION 



Richmond Chamber of Commerce, 

Relating to the Oyster Question, adoffed at the Annual Meeting 
op the Chamber, Junk 8th, 1893. 

oyster question. 

Mr. It. Carter Scott, Chairman of the Committee on Legislation, submitted l lie 
following report upon the oyster question, which was unanimously adopted: 

The undersigned, yonr Committee on Legislation, to whom several communica- 
tions relating to the oyster question in Virginia were recently referred, beg leave 
to report — 

That they are deeply impressed with the importance of the development of this 
valuable property of the State, containing 800,000 acres, and with the fact that the 
question lias not bad an amount of attention devoted to it by the while people of 
the Commonwealth at all commensurate with the magnitude of their common 
interest. When considered as a resource, by means of which the present burden 
of taxation maybe reduced throughout the entire State, and from which large and 
more adequate appropriations may be made practicable to the many necessary 
public work- and institutions, every citizen, irrespective of \\\< location, has alike 
the deepest interest in its utmost development. . 

Yo n r committee is reliably informed that the system in effect^rior to the act tc 



PROCEEDINGS OF OYSTEB CONVENTION. 7 

protect the oyster industry of the Commonwealth, approved at the last meeting of 
the Legislature, was a source of continuous expense to the State and destructive 
of the oyster itself, when it should have been a source of vast revenue to both the 
State and those engaged in the industry. That this has been the case solely on 
account of the undeveloped condition of the property, growing out of the im- 
provident methods of some of our citizens, the destructive depredations of non- 
residents, and the failure of the system to promote and protect the intelligent and 
profitable investment of labor and capital in the business. That while the act of 
February 29th, 1892, is a move in the right direction, and lias already had its good 
effects, they believe, from the testimony of experts and from the experience of 
other oyster-producing sections of this and other countries, that the peculiar 
nature and exposed condition of this property demands a most vigorous, well- 
defined and uniform system; and that only by such a system can the ratio of 
expense to receipts be reduced to a minimum, ami this great interest be fully 
developed and protected. 

These conditions induce the opinion on the part of your committee that there is 
urgent need of an active and immediate educational campaign, which shall result 
in such general light being thrown upon the question, that universal interest may 
be aroused, prejudice and ignorance removed, and prompt, efficient and wise legis- 
lation secured. 

They therefore recommend that tin- commercial organizations throughout the 
State, which should, from their character and objects, most sensibly feel the im- 
portance of developing every source of wealth in the Commonwealth, be requested 
to give this question in all its bearings their early and serious consideration; and 
to the end that all the exigencies and equities of the situation may he fairly and 
freely discussed, that they he asked to send delegates to a meeting for conference 
in Richmond during the approaching summer, at sometime to be agreed upon; 
and that representatives of the tongmen, dredgers and planters, as well as experts 
who have given the subject special investigation and study, he invited to address 
this meeting. 

A copy from the record — Teste: 

K. A. DUNLOP, Secretary. 



EXTRACTS FROM THE MESSAGE 

OF 

His Ixxcellei^cv] Y l^ilip W . McK^rpevj, 

TRANSMITTED TO THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF VIRGINIA, 
DECEMBER 6, 1893. 

OTJB OYSTER INTERESTS. 

The people of the state are taking a deeper interest in i his great industry than formerly , 
and the local prejudice against legislation on the subject is wearing out. I trust it will not 
belong before we will be able to so amend the present law, in the line of progress, that it 
will meet with the approval of all. 

It is fast becoming a conceded question that the oyster'industry must be protected and 
the state's interests looked after, or there will be such a destruction of the natural beds 
that they will soon become Worthless; whereas, if our people are protected by wise laws 
rigidly enforced, this product will in a brief period exceed in value the estimate of tin- 
most sanguine, and Tidewater will attain such a prosperity as she has never before known. 

It is useless to expect, however, that this interest will receive at the hands of the Legis- 
lature efficient protection, unless those who are engaged in it are willing to bear a reasonable 
proportion of the expenses necessary to secure it; and the old idea that the property of th 
people of the whole State, alone, is to be taxed to give protection to those who are engaged 
in this business, will be deemed unreasonable. 

BENT — NO TAXES. 

We create a prejudice on the subject of renting out this property to raise money for its 
protection and other equitable purposes, by calling it a tax. This is a misnomer. These 
are the facts: we have a large area of oyster land, which belongs to the State; it is ours in 
fee simple; its great extent and value is conceded ; we propose to rent this land to the citi- 
zens of Virginia at the low price of one dollar per acre. We compel no man to take it, and 
if the citizen rents this land at a stipulated price.be does it of his own free will, and can, 
in no proper sense, be called a tax-payer. It is not taxes he is paying to the State ; it is rent 
money; he does it voluntarily, and he has no right to complain and allege that this in- 
creases the tax he owes to the Stab'. On the other band, 1 1. would be a misuse of its 
(lowers for the State to tax every kind of property belonging to thecitizens according to 
its value in order to raise the necessary amount to meet the demands upon the Treasurj . 
and fail to utilize such vast amounts of valuable property as she owns in her oyster lands, 
and allow it to go to waste, or to be seized by those who use and abuse it, and who uoi 
only do not make an equitable division of the profits, but all the other property of the 
citizen is taxed thousands of dollars to protect them in their unlawful holdings. 

It cannot be justified. That the Legislature should use all available property and re- 
sources which the state owns, before it has a right to take, by taxation, any of tin; resources 
of the private citizens for public uses, is a proposition which will not be disputed. The 
indifference manifested heretofore, by the people of the whole State, is a surprise to every 
thinking man. It is the result of a want of knowledge on this subject. No one better mi- 



PROCEEDINGS OF OYSTER CONVENTION. 9 

derstood this question than Governor Wise. He was horn and reared among the people of 
thai section; he was devoted t<> their interests, and was esteemed and beloved by them, 
and no one lias been more enthusiastic in declaring ils great value. He Mas the first to sug- 
gest that a large revenue could be derived from it. and urged it. 

LEGISLATION NECESSARY. 

The time has come when it is necessary for us to have efficient legislation on the subject. 
The necessities of the State require it. and the oyster interests demand it. Week after 
week, the year round, complaint comes to the Capitol " that we are being visited by strange 
vessels, wiio are plundering our oyster-grounds and robbing our rivers, and begging that 
protection should be given to them." How can you get the protection? 

The devastation which the strangers are committing is in the Virginia waters, and the 
grounds they are trespassing on are the oyster-lands of Virginia. I think vigorous meas- 
ures should at once be adopted; theory of the people should he answered. Virginia ought 
to assert her rights. This cannot lie done without expense. To raise money to enable us to 
do this, these lands should be rented, and when this is done, it will at once become the im- 
perative duty of the stale t«> grant the protection which is so greatly needed by her citizens, 
and as much of the money as is necessary for this purpose should be taken and devoted 
to the defence of the property which Virginia lias temporarily conceded to its occupants. 
Lay aside prejudice and look fairly at the question. Is it right that property all over the 
State should be taxed to protect the oyster interest, while the oyster grounds belonging to 
thi state— not to individuals— are seized and used at will by the people, many of whom 
not only make no returns to the State for their use. but demand that we protect them in 
the unauthorized, and hence unlawful, possession at our own cost? This is unreasonable. 
I repeat with emphasis, every oyster interest should be efficiently protected, and marauders 
who disregard the law and tin- rights of the people should be captured and punished, and 
1 he use of all of our valuable possessions on the water, and in the water, should lie as effici- 
ently guarded as the property on the land, or the land itself. 

Many laws have been enacted looking in a measure to this, but they have been ineffi- 
cient, and the pillaging is still going on. 

The good people are still dissatisfied with the inefficiency of the law, and are demand- 
ing protection. Let me give you some of the facts, so that you ma.\ see how inadequate 
i In' law has been. We will look to the results in figures. This is the way the account stands 
on our books, showing the amount received from the tax and the amount disbursed for 
pr< itection— 

Receipts. 

1880 S 293 29 

1881 542 53 

1882 1,248 62 

1883 1,249 62 

1884 919 93 

1885 26,476 93 

1886 22,949 sii 

lssr 13,329 21 

1888 13,755 89 

1889 l_*.4r> i 56 

1891 11.1 M 83 

1892 15,236 04 

|S<t:; 32,695 su 

se official tables show the acknowledged righl of Virginia in this property,-the ueed 

Ol protection, and the inefficiency of t lie law. and the consequent demand for amend men t . 
and what the people should expect of the present Legislature. 1 have not the space to en- 
large on these facts as 1 should like. 

SINCE THE LAST LEGISLATURE. 

The last Legislature passed El law on the subject which was imperfect in many respects, 
but was an improvement on the old law. I hope it will receive a thorough examination, 
and that such amendments will he made as are demanded by the pi-esent necessities. 



Disburse- 


ment 


s. 


H 1 


2l> 


17 


54 


299 


52 


299 


52 


18,907 


1*7 


27, 02.", 


or, 


22,."i7 1 


25 


16,712 


35 


18,922 


82 


19,561 


7f 


24,683 


92 


16,994 


22 


17,017 


58 



10 ' PROCEEDINGS OF OYSTEE CONVENTION. 



REVENUE FKOM THIS SOITKCE. 

The survey of the oyster-grounds of the Chesapeake and its tributaries has been recently 
completed. This important work has been done with but little cost to the State. Jt should 
have been done years ago. It shows the greatness of our undeveloped resources, and 
must strengthen our credit and increase the value of our bonds. 

We have loO.OOO acres of natural bed or rocks, which are of in estimable value; they should 
be held for the benefit of the people of Virginia, and no dredge or scrape should be allowed 
on them. We have 650,000 acres, including Chesapeake Bay proper, suitable for planting, 
which can be rented by the citizens of the state at 81 per acre. 

This estimate does nut embrace the oyster grounds on the ocean side of the counties Of 
Accoinac ami Northampton, which are large in acreage and very valuable. 

The marsh lands have not been considered: these in due time will be made as valuable 
as the grounds now used fur planting; experts say they will be more certain to produce 
uniform crops under improved cultivation. I think it would lie safe to estimate the number 
of acres suitable for oyster cultivation at about one million. 

Rent these at a dollar per acre, and what a royal revenue il will bring to (he State! It 
may be said that, you cannot rind renters? Then repeal the law which restricts renting 
to the citizen, after a reasonable time is given them to secure the grounds, and invite 
foreign capital to come in, and ii will not be Ions before we win be able to dispose of everj 
acre. 

Many of the new comers will bring their families and erect homes along the shores ; 
the large and uncultivated farms will be divided and sold; new ideas and methods will 
be introduced among our people, and soon prosperity will take the place of the business 
stagnation which has so long existed. 

The trucker on the shore, and the oysterman on the water -the products of the land 
vying with Hie products of the water— what a source of undeveloped wealth! what in- 
ducements they offer to the world ! 

But this is not all. You have ten thousand ton-ei's and dredgers and others engaged in 
the fish and oyster industry, who, when properly taxed, will add largely to the revenues of 
the State, if efficient means are used in the assessment and collection. Nothing but tin 
worst management can prevent large revenues from these sources, larger than we now 
have from railroads, or from licenses, or from personal property, or from any other soi 
except real estate. Is not this sufficient to direct the constant and earnest efforts of the 
General Assembly of Virginia to this important subject. 



Proceedings of the Convention. 



The Convention was called to order at 12:30 P. M. by Judge 
George L.Christian, President of the Richmond Chamber of Com- 
merce, as follows : 

Gentlemen of the Convention: 

This is in no sense a meeting under the direction or control of the Chamber of 
Commerce of Richmond ; and whilst this is bo, yet, inasmuch as this Convention 
is held somewhat under its auspices and in its home, it has been deemed appro- 
priate that J, as the official head of the Chamber of Commerce of Richmond, 
should perform the very pleasant though simple duty of calling the meeting to 
order. In doing this, I shall not usurp the duty which has been assigned his 
Honor the Mayor of Richmond, who will extend to you a formal welcome, but i 
am certain he will not think I am infringing on his provinces if I give expression 
to the sentiment which 1 am sure is felt by every Virginian present when I say 
that you are all always welcome to the capital city of the Old Dominion. 

This Convention, as far as I know, is something new in the history of this 
Commonwealth. Von 'nave been called together to consider a most important 
question— one that I believe has been seriously neglected in the past; one 
that, it is said, involves an interest of twenty millions of dollars to the people of 
this Commonwealth within the last ten years. An interest which amounts to 
such a large sum of money as that to a State in the impoverished condition of 
Virginia means a great deal to her people, and demands at the bands of this 
body the most serious and attentive consideration that it can give, and 1 am con- 
fident you will give it that consideration. 

I believe in always giving honor to whom honor is due. Without intend- 
ing to reflect in the slightest degree upon any administration which has passed 
1 feel assured that this interest in the ovster industry has been principally 
pally brought about by the wise, patriotic and conservative administration"of His 
Excellency Governor McKinney. I believe that I reflect the sense of the people 
of this old Commonwealth when T say thai bis administration has been as clean 
as a penny and as sound as a dollar, and that it will grow in importance in the 
history of this State with each recurring year. 1 know of no more important 
interest that he has stirred up in this State than that which brings you here 
together this morning. That industry, as I say. involves a vast resource to 
the people of this Commonwealth, and whether the State owns this meat 
domain of 800,000 acres of oyster lands in trust for her people or in fee simple — 
some claim one was and some the other — is a matter of no consequence what- 
ever. If the State holds it in fee simple, then the people of the State Ought to 



12 PROCEEDINGS OF OYSTER CONVENTION. 

enjoy the benefits of such a valuable domain; if it holds it in trust for the 
people, it should so administer that trust that the whole people of this State 
can reap the benefits from the trust subject. So it is a matter of no consequence, 
I say, how the Commonwealth holds this great domain. 

I stated that we were a poor people, but, gentlemen, we have in this old Com- 
monwealth the richest inheritance of any people I know of, and it behooves 
us as the citizens of this State to so enjoy that heritage as to develop it for the 
interest of all our people. I believe this Convention will do much towards 
giving the proper direction to the enjoyment ,of this important interest of the 
State. I see before me men who are capable of dealing with this great subject. 
I regret to acknowledge, gentlemen, that the only thing I know about the oyster 
is that it is the best thing on earth to eat, but J know it through and through 
in that respect- 
It now becomes my very pleasant duty to present to you my worthy friend, the 
Mayor of this city, who will extend to you a cordial welcome ; I ml before taking 
my seat I wish to say a.<_ r ain that on behalf of the Chamber of Commerce of this 
city you are most cordially welcome to its home that it has recently provided for 
the administration of its affairs. 

Before Mayor Ellyson addresses you, I should state that the regular order of 
business will he the organization of this body and an adjournment until 4 o'clock 
this evening, when there will be addresses made by several distinguished gentle- 
men from a distance, and when the members of the Legislature will also be 
present with you. 

Mayor Ellyson then addressed the Convention as follows: 

Mr. Chairman mid <jrnil< mm .■ 

I never have a more pleasant duty assigned me than when I am accorded the 
privilege of assuring our visitors that we are glad to see them. I trust that no 
Virginian needs such an assurance, for I hope that all of the citizens of this 
Commonwealth feel at home in their capital city. To the distinguished gentlemen 
who, from beyond the borders of the State, have come to contribute of their expe- 
rience and wisdom to our deliberations, T bid a special welcome ami extend a. 
cordial greeting. 

We have come to talk as business men in a business way about a business matter. 
We have come to consider that which I believe, if wisely considered, will result 
in advantage to the interests of the individual and promote at the same time the 
welfare of the Commonwealth. I should not dare to venture out upon the sea of 
discussion on the oyster question. 1 served four years. in the State Senate and 
have heard the qtiestion discussed, and I shall enjoy the luxury and privilege of 
being a quiel listener on this occasion. T have been accustomed to hearing the 
matter presented by those immediately interested, and whilst there are conflicting 
views and there seem to he difficulties in the way of adjusting the interests of the 
tongers, the dredgers, and others engaged in the business, yet after hearing these 
discussions I did feel that there ought to he a solution of the problem, and that 
there could be a wise solution of it if those who were most familiar with the 
matter con Id hi- broughl together and discuss it from a business standpoint, entirely 
uncomplicated by any Other consideration ; and 1 feel that way to-day. I believe 
if this conference will, as 1 know it will, take this question up as a business 
question, and discuss it as such, that some solution will he reached which will 



PROCEEDINGS OF OYSTER CONVENTION. 13 

greatly promote the interests of the individual who has his money or labor 
invested in this industry, and will at the same time greatly promote the importance 
of that industry, considered in its economic relations to the Commonwealth. 1 
trust that we shall he aide to reach some conclusion, before we leave this Chamber, 
that wdl enable our legislators to enact such laws as will accomplish the results 
indicated, if that shall he the result of this conference, then 1 can -ay that when 
we shall have left this hall no other body of men who have ever assembled for 
business purposes in this Commonwealth will have accomplished greater good to 
the State than will those composing this Convention. 

Gentlemen, with renewed assurances of the pleasure it nives us to see you here 
to-day, and trusting that when our deliberations shall hi' over you will carry away 
with you to your homes as pleasant recollections of Richmond as I am sure you 
will leave behind you, T again bid you welcome. 

Chair: The next business in order is the permanent organization 
of the body. How shall that be effected? 

Maj. Hotchkiss: I move that the Chair appoint a committee of 
five on permanent organization. 

The motion being carried, the Chair appointed the following as 
the committee : Maj. J. D. Hotchkiss, Maj. Mann Page, Governor 
P. W. McKinney, R. Carter Scott, aud Win. Ellinger. 

After a short retirement, the committee made the following report : 

For Permanent Chairman — Hon. J. Taylor Ellyson, of Richmond. 
First Vice-President — Governor P. W. McKinney, of Farmville. 
Second Vice-President — J. Hoy Baylor, of Albemarle and Caroline. 
Third Vice-President — A. P. With row, of Bath county. 
Fourth Vice-President — Orris A Browne, of Northampton county. 
Fifth Vice-President — R. S. Thomas, of Isle of Wight county. 
Sixth Vice-President — Judge G. T. Garnett, of Mathews county. 
Secretaries — R. A. Dunlop, Secretary of the Chamber of Com- 
merce, Richmond, Ya., and the representatives of the press. 

In presenting the report of the committee, Maj. Hotchkiss called 
attention to the fact that each of the grand divisions of the Com- 
monwealth had been considered, but, in view of the importance of 
the question to be discussed to that section, three of the Vice-Presi- 
dents had been selected from Tidewater. 

The report of the committee having been adopted, on taking the 
chair, Mayor Ellyson made the following remarks: 

Gentlemen, — 1 am very much obliged to you for the compliment of electing me 
to preside over your deliberations. 1 shall certainly endeavor to discharge the 
duties of the position of your presiding officer with the strictest impartiality. I 
invite your earnest co-operation, and I shall endeavor by a courteous discharge of 
the duties of the office to merit the confidence which you have placed in me. I 
ftm now readv to entertain any motion. 



14 PROCEEDINGS OF OYSTEE CONVENTION. 

Maj. Page moved that the Secretary be requested to prepare a 
complete list of the delegates by the hour of adjournment of the 
morning session. So ordered. 

On motion of Mr. Scott, all the visitors from beyond the State 
were requested to participate in the deliberations of this ( 'onvention 
and to hand in their names to the Secretary. 

On motion of Mr. P>. F. Johnson, the Convention then adjourned 
until four o'clock. 



In accordance with the motion oi' Major Page, the following 
delegates were iegistered at the Secretary's desk : 

Asher, John, Gloucester Co., Va. 

Armstrong, J. D., President Norfolk and Portsmouth Packers' \ssoeiation, Nor- 
folk ('(». 
Allium, Walter, York river, Va. 
Armistead, G. F., Mathews Co., Ya. 
Brown, J. Thompson, Brierfield, Bedford Co.. Ya. 
Baylor, Dr. .1. R., Caroline Co.. Ya. 
Browne, Capt. Orris A., Charles City Co., Va. 
Buford, Col. A. S., Richmond, Henrico Co., Ya. 
Bonewell, .1. F., Morrison, Warwick Co., Va. 
Brown, Geo., West Point, King William Co v Ya. 
Boiling, R. M., Princess Anne Co.. Va. 
Christian, Hon. Geo. L., Richmond, Henrico Co., Ya. 
Car v, Col. John B., Richmond, Henrico Co.. Va. 
Cutshaw, Col. Wm. E., Richmond, Henrico Co., Ya. 
I tostin, S. .)., Northampton Co., Va. 
Conklin, T., Norfolk, Norfolk Co., Va-. 
Christian, Thomas, Richmond, Henrico Co., Va. 
Daniel, C. C, Pleasant Hill, N. C. 
Ellyson, Hon. J. Taylor, Richmond, Henrico Co., Ya. 
Ellinger, Wm., Accomac Co., Va. 
Farinholt, Col. L. B., Essex Co., Ya. 
Finney, Chas. P., Accomac Co., Ya. 
Gortin, J. H., W T estern Branch, Va. 
Garnett, Jnd<j;e ( r. T., Mathews Co., Va. 
Hotchkiss, Jed., Staunton, Augusta Co., Ya. 
Henley, Judge R. L., Williamsburg, James City Co . Ya. 
Hopkins, Gerald, Gloucester Co.. Va. 
Harrison, W. A., Nansemond Co., Va. 
Hart, P.. S., Middlesex Co., Ya. 

Harlow, M. 1!.. Alexandria Board of Trade, Alexand 'I i Co., \'a. 
Johnson, B. F., Richmond, Henrico Co., Va. 
Lockett, E. F., Crewe, Nottoway Co., Va. 
Lee, W. McD., Lancaster Co., Va. 
Long, F. W., Lancaster Co., Ya. 



PROCEEDINGS OF OYSTER CONVENTION. 15 

McAnge, W. N., Suffolk, Nansemond Co., Va. 

McDonald, Hon. Marshall, Washington, D. C. 

McKinney, Gov. P. W., Farmville, Prince Edward Co., Va. 

Massic, Eugene C. Richmond, Henrico Co., Va. 

Merer, G. W., River View, Va. 

Nye, John, York River, Va. 

Odell, J. D., New Kent Co., Va. 

Page, Maj. Mann, Brandon, Prince George Co.. Va. 

Piatt, L. P., Warwick Co., Va. 

Palmer, R. J., West Point, King William Co., Va. 

Pickett, John B., Norfolk Business Men's Association, Norfolk, Va. 

Rowe, Henry C, New Haven, Conn. 

Ross, John H. C, Lexington, Rockbridge Co., Va. 

Roberts, John H., Northampton Co., Va. 

Richardson, A. P., New Kent Co., Va, 

Scott. P. Carter, Richmond, Henrico.Co., Va. 

Staples, Col. Abram, Stuart, Patrick Co., Va. 

Smith, Dr. G. \V., Middlesex Co.. Va. 

Seldon, R. C, Goochland Co., Va. 

Taliaferro, James L., Gloucester Co., Va. 

Treat, Morgan, West Point, King William Co., Va. 

Terrill, J. J., Burton Creek, Campbell Co., Va. 

Thomas, R. S., Isle of Wight Co., Va. 

Ward, Geo. W., Winchester, Frederick Co., Va. 

Wellford, Judge B. Rand., Richmond, Henrico Co., Va. 

Winslow, Lieut. Francis, New Berne, N. C. 

Wilkinson, E., West Point, King William Co., Va. 

Willis, A. G., Culpeper Co., Va. 

AVillis, W. G., Fredericksburg, Spotsylvania Co., Va. 

White, D. Frank, Accomac Co., Va. 

Williams, Dr. T. E., Ashcake, Hanover Co., Va, 

Welch, Judge, Caroline Co , Va. 

Withrow, Hon. A. F., Bath Co., Va. 

In addition to the foregoing, the follovvi tt^ gentlemen, in response 
to invitations to the Oyster Convention, signified their purpose to 
attend, some of whom were doubtless present, though they did not 
register : 

Apperson, John S., Marion, Smyth Co., Va. 
Ames, John W., Nansemond Co., \'a. 
Barbour, G. W., Somerset, I hrange Co., Va. 
Baker, W. W., Hallaboro, Chestertield Co., Va. 
Boston, Dudley R., Union Mills, Fluvanna Co., Va. 
Board of Trade, Portsmouth, Norfolk Co., Va. 
Caldwell, J. B., Old Town, Grayson Co.. Va. 
Cox, M. P., Saddle, Grayson Co., Va. 
Christian, Frank W., Richmond, Henrico Co., Va. 
Connor, R.. Newport News, Warwick Co, Va. 



16 PROCEEDINGS OF OYSTER CONVENTION. 

( lapps, W. T.j Lamberts Point, Va. 

Oulpeper, G., Portsmouth Board of Trade, Norfolk Co., Va. 

Ewing, W. It., Meherrin, Lunenburg Co., Va. 

Fauntleroy, Thomas, Lynch's Station, Campbell Co., Va. 

Finney,E. P>., Onancock, Accomac Co., Va. 

Faris, R. J., Scottsville, Albemarle Co., Va. 

Ford,P>., Cartersville, Cumberland Co., Va. 

Hart, 15. Frank, Harmony Village, Middlesex Co., Va. 

Harrison, Randolph, Cartersville, Cumberland Co., Va. 

Harrison, James P., Danville, Pittsylvania Co., Va. 

Hunton, Eppa, Jr., Warrenton, Fauquier Co., Va. 

Henckel, Louis T., Charlottesville, Albemarle Co., Va. 

Holladay, H. T., Rapidan, Orange Co., Va. 

Hartley, R. B., Stony Creek, Sussex Co., Va. 

Jeffreys, E. A., Chincoteague Island, Accomac Co., Va. 

Lambert, L. W., Norfolk Co., Va. 

Long, J. Miller, Winchester, Frederick Co., Va. 

Lee, D. M., Stafford Co., Va. 

Murray, K. C, Norfolk, Norfolk Co., Va. 

Nash, Chas. R., Portsmouth Board of Trade, Norfolk Co., Va. 

Oyster Planters' Union, Millenbeck, Lancaster Co., Va. 

Palmer, James A., Kilmarnock, Lancaster Co., Va. 

Pretlow, J. D., Franklin, Southampton Co., Va. 

Page, John, Beaver Dam, Hanover Co., Va. 

Smith, Thos. W., Suffolk, Nansemond Co., Va. 

Vaiden,J. B., New Kent C. H., New Kent Co., Va. 

Vernon, Dr., Portsmouth Board of Trade, Norfolk Co., Va. 

Watkins, J. B., Hallsboro, Chesterfield Co., Va. 

Waddill, E. T., Richmond, Henrico Co., Va. 

Wirt, Daniel P., Oak drove, Westmoreland Co., Va. 

Wood, R. S. 

Wilkins, Dr. John T. Bridgetown, Northampton Co., Va. 

Warner, Alex. E., Portsmouth Board of Trade, Norfolk Co., Va. 

AVhite, Jos. F., Portsmouth Board of Trade, Norfolk Co., Va. 

Wainwright, Geo. C, Portsmouth Board of Trade, Norfolk Co., Va. 



AFTEKNOON SESSION. 

The Convention was called to order promptly at four o'clock, and, 
on motion of Colonel Purcell, a recess of fifteen minutes was taken 
pending the arrival of the members of the Legislature, who had 
.accepted an invitation to attend. 

Upon again reassembling, Mr. R. Carter Scott submitted the fol- 
lowing report : 

( )n behalf of the Committee on Legislation, I have to report that 
the following gentlemen have been invited to attend and address 



PROCEEDINGS OF OYSTEK CONVENTION. 17 

this Convention, and that the Legislature of Virginia has accepted 
an invitation to hear them at this hour, 4 P. M. It is therefore 
suggested that they address the Convention in the following order: 

Captain J. B. Baylor, of the U. S. Coast .Survey, who has recently, 
in accordance with an act approved by the General Assembly of 
Virginia February 29th, 1892, been engaged in the survey of the 
oyster ground- ; 

Henry C. Rovve, of Xew Haven, Conn., a practical and successful 
oyster planter of Long Island Sound ; 

Lieutenant Francis Winslow, President and General Manager of 
the Pamlico Oyster Company, Xew Berne, N. C. ; 

>nel Marshall McDonald, U. S. Commissioner of Fish and 
Fisheries ; 

Professor W. K. Brooks, of the Johns Hopkins University, Balti- 
more, Md. : 

Hon. P. W. McKinney, ex Governor of Virginia. 

After these addresses, it is suggested that there be a general dis- 
cussion of the question, in which the delegates from the oyster 
section be especially invited to take part. 

On motion, the suggestions of the committee were adopted, and 
Captain Baylor was invited to address the Convention. 

ADDRESS OF OAPT. .1. 1!. BAYLOR. 

Mr. Chairman arid Gentlemen: 

We meet together at the invitation of the Chamber of Commerce, a body 
which has ever been active in devising means for the material advancement of 
every section of the State. 

It seems eminently proper that we should assemble at the invitation of such a 
body to consider the best means for the proper management of a part of this State, 
greater in extent than is the total area of some of the States of the T'nion — a ter- 
ritory from which has been realized during the last ten years the great sum of 
twenty millions of dollars ($20,000,000) from the sale of one single product — the 
oyster, practically of spontaneous growth. 

That this great territory, even in an undeveloped condition, is a magnificent 
possession cannot hi' disputed. 

Before, we can deal intelligently with the questions involved in the management 
and government of this great domain, we must at the outset determine whose 
property it is. 

It has never been seriously claimed that it belongs to the General Government. 
It is, then, the property of the State of Virginia, and it is the property of the 
citizens of the whole State, and not of those of her citizens who happen to live 
adjacent t<> this territory. As the property of the State of Virginia, the citizen 



18 PROCEEDINGS OF OYSTER CONVENTION. 

who lives in Augusta is as much part owner of this territory as the citizen who 
lives in Accomack. As such, he has as much voice in the management of it as 
the man who happens to live adjacent to it. 

It is, then, the right and the duty of the people of Virginia to so manage their 
property that the greatest good to the greatest number shall be the result. Since, 
on account of the distribution of the population of Virginia, only a small fraction 
of it is so situated as to derive direct practical advantage from proximity to the 
oyster-grounds, it is clearly the right of the majority of the people to so control 
this territory that they shall in the long run obtain the greatest pecuniary advan- 
tage possible from it. 

That Virginia has a heavy burden to bear in so educating her children that they 
shall be able to cope successfully with the children of sister communities, which 
have vast sums of accumulated wealth for their industrial education, is a sad fact. 
The speaker, in his twenty years' experience as a civil engineer, has had excep- 
tional opportunities of comparing the industrial educational advantages of the 
different sections of this Union. Although he is proud to be enrolled amongst 
those who hold engineering and scientific degrees from what he conceives to Iks 
the foremost educational institution of the South, he must frankly confess that 
the South to-day is far behind the North, the East, and the West in facilities for 
industrial education. This is due to the poverty of her people and not to a lack 
of earnest workers. 

That country which is forced to use only primitive methods is left hopelessly 
behind in the race. To cope successfully with those who have been so fortunate 
as to receive industrial training in the great mechanical schools of the North, 
East, and West, our young men must receive similar training. The eye and the 
hand must be educated in order to use to the best advantage the mechanical 
appliances which now so universally lessen the cost of production. 

When the speaker was recently urging upon one of the largest, land-owners of 
the State the importance of introducing certain labor-saving machines, such as are 
in common use upon the greatest farms of the Northwest, he was answered that 
after a careful trial of such implements the farmer had been compelled to abandon 
them because it was impossible to find in his vicinity men who could repair them 
and keep them in order. Frequently it is difficult to find in a rural community in 
Virginia a man who can even put together the different pieces of such machinery. 
What hope is there of establishing in such communities manufactories where 
skilled labor is required? The capitalist who would attempt it would bankrupt 
himself before he could train his labor. 

We must all admit that Virginia needs industrial schools, in the impoverished 
condition of her people, it is clearly her duty to utilize to the best advantage such 
resources as she possesses. 

The good fortune of the State of Texas, in having a vast public domain winch 
belongs exclusively to the State, is often commented on. She is wisely devoting 
the proceeds of the sale of this public land almost exclusively to the education of 
her children. The splendid effect of such a policy is already becoming apparent. 
The last national census proved that no part of the South had made so great an 
advance in population as Texas. 

The equipment of the industrial schools would ho necessarily an expensive 
business. The necessary mechanical outfit, the skilled instructors, all represent 
outlay. Where shall Virginia obtain the funds necessary to place her where she 
rightly belongs — amongst the foremost States of the Union in material prosperity? 



PROCEEDINGS OF OY8TEE CONVENTION. 19 

No one who is familiar with the present condition of the agricultural das- in 
Virginia believes that it can hear any greater tax than that with which it is 
already burdened in the cause of public education. The necessary funds must lie 
obtained by utilizing to the very best advantage the territory of which every 
citizen of the State is part owner. Whether she lias used and is using this 
territory to the best advantage is the question I propose to discuss briefly this 
evening. 

There is hardly any natural product which cannot be greatly improved and in- 
creased in quality and quantity by the expenditure of energy and capital. The 
oyster is no exception to this rule. No product of earth or water can be more 
largely increased by human intelligence and labor. 

Ninety-five per cent, of the oysters of Europe arc obtained from artificial 
beds — beds often produced by first macadamizing soft mud flats, so scarce are 
suitable bottoms. 

In Holland, at Berg-op-Zoom, the total product of oysters did not exceed, in 
1875, $9,000. In the same year oyster culture was introduced. In 1882, through 
this means, the annual product of the same bottoms reached the sum of $900,000. 
Similar results have been readied in England, Belgium, and in the beds adjacent. 
to Schleswig-1 lolstein. 

In Connecticut only $31,305 was, in IMS!), realized from natural beds, while the 
yield of cultivated oysters brought $1,040,372 —more than thirty-three times as 
much; a yield per acre from cultivated grounds of $34.60 against $1.62 per acre 
from natural beds. With such examples as this, which might be multiplied, it 
cannot be denied that, under favorable conditions, oysters can be profitably 
cultivated. 

of the $2,218,376 realized from the sale of oysters from Virginia waters in 1880, 
a comparatively insignificant sum was obtained from cultivated bed--. 

According to the most conservative estimates from surveys made by Lieutenant' 
Winslow and others, the people of Virginia own 800,000 acres of territory suitable, 
under scientific systems, for the profitable cultivation of the oyster. How poor 
has been their management of this great oyster farm in comparison with the man- 
agement of some other States and countries! If Virginia realized as much pro- 
portionately from the sale of cultivated oysters as doe- the State of Connecticut, 
the stupendous sum of fifty millions of dollars would be brought into the State 
annually from the sale of oysters. 

The burning question with us should be how we are to bring about a better 
state of things. The greatest incentive, as we all know, to the improvement of 
property is individual ownership. The tenant system would seem to be as un- 
favorable to the development of the oyster farm as to that of agricultural land. 
The oyster area of Virginia can be divided into two great sections. There are 
bottoms upon which oysters stilj grow naturally in sufficient numbers and upon 
sufficiently large area- for her citizens to gather oyster- profitably without sys- 
tematic cultivation. Using the most liberal construction of the definition of the 
natural oyster bed, the total area of such beds in Virginia will not embrace a 
larger area than 160,000 acres, and this estimate is based on actual legal surveys 
authorized by our last legislature. 

These natural oyster beds have been delineated by three (3) oyster commis- 
sioners in each oyster county having natural beds. These commissioners have 
been selected by the judge of the county on account of their character and their 
local knowledge of the grounds to be surveyed. An examination of a list of these 



20 PROCEEDINGS OF OYSTEB CONVENTION. 

commissioners will prove that a majority of them have gathered oysters sinc< 
boyhood from the rocks they have been called on to delineate. 

Outside of the 160,000 acres of natural oyster beds delineated by these gentlemen, 
the people of Virginia own 640,000 acres of bottoms suitable for the profitable cul- 
tivation of the oyster, by the application of improved methods, which in their 
present condition are practically barren and useless, and have been so for years 
past. 

Let the survey which has been authorized of the natural oyster deposits be 
made final. These boundaries have been defined in deference to the sentiment of 
each individual oyster county, largely in deference to representatives of the tong- 
iiu class. 

On the whole, the speaker, from his personal observations, believes they have 
been made more extensive than the conditions of the bottoms justify. The people 
of Virginia have conceded so much to the feelings of those of her citizens who 
live adjacent to her oyster territory, and who have been in the habit of gathering 
oysters from the natural oyster deposits. They cannot reasonably expect more. 

To utilize the 640,000 acres of barren territory, she must give the individual or 
company to whom she assigns any part of it a clear and undisputed title. She can 
never do this unless she makes final the survey now delineating the boundaries 
between what is public property and what may he private property. 

The first great reform which I would suggest to the Convention is the necessity 
of nrging upon the Legislature the importance of thus legalizing the survey of 
the natural oyster deposits. In doing this she will only be following the example 
of every other State and country which has encouraged the cultivation of the 
oyster. 

The act authorizing the survey should be so far amended as to omit the words 
" provided if any natural rock, bed or shoal is left out of these surveys, they shall 
not be used fbr planting grounds, but shall be subject to the general oyster law of 
the State." This would give the inspectors a certain guide in renting grounds and 
would settle all titles. The official charts and filed records defining the bounda- 
ries of the natural oyster beds should not then be changed except by a special act 
of the Legislature in each individual case. 

The second important point which the speaker would urge upon this body is 
the importance of vesting in the individual oyster planter or planters a perpetual 
lease to the bottoms which they cultivate. In pursuing such a system, all exist- 
ing leases must be respected as well as all recognized legally established riparian 
rights. The State is in honor bound to do this. 

There are thousands of acres of bottoms which are so soft that they can never 
be utilized for oysters unless they are hardened by the deposit of vast quantities 
of oyster shells, sand and other suitable material ; on a limited lease no oyster 
farmer could afford to do this. Here the advantage of individual ownership 
might be strikingly exemplified. 

There are vast areas in Chesapeake Bay proper which cannot be utilized on 
account of the depth of water and the large area which it would be necessary to 
plant except by aggregated capital under some system of perpetual lease. The 
most profitable oyster culture in Long Island Sound has been that carried on in 
deep) water by the use of steam appliances. 

The speaker is strongly of the opinion from personal observations in Long 
Island Sound, that whether Virginia shall continue to hold the tributaries of 
Chesapeake Bay for the use of her own citizens or not, it would be good policy to 



PROCEEDINGS OF OYSTER CONVENTION. 21 

allow outside capital and energy to utilize the barren bottoms of Chesapeake Bay 
proper. She has neither the necessary appliances nor men skilled in this deep- 
water oyster culture. Her own people are doing nothing with these Chesapeake 
Bay bottoms. Why, then, should she not give outside capital an opportunity of 
working them ? Under existing laws, a Virginian would be subject to a fine of 
1500 who would have associated with him any outsider in any capacity. He can- 
not even sub-let his oyster ground to a brother Virginian. If we should deter- 
mine to sell our barren oyster grounds, what system should be adopted in dis- 
posing of them? To obtain as much as possible for them, we should sell them to 
the highest bidder, with a minimum price so fixed that they shall not be sacri- 
ficed. The true criterion of value is what a thing will bring when it is duly adver- 
tised. The bottoms should then be assessed periodically by a competent board 
of assessors and taxes imposed as on any other property. 

As to the area which any one firm or individual may be allowed to buy, there 
is a great difference of opinion even amongst those who, like the speaker, believe 
that the barren grounds of Virginia should be sold that they may be utilized to 
the best advantage. 

There is no denying the fact that the people of that country are the most pros- 
perous and contented where the territory is distributed amongst the largest num- 
ber of holders. On bottoms covered with water less than a certain depth (say 
under fifteen feet) and less than one and a half miles from habitable shores, the 
extent of the bottom purchasable by any one individual buyer might be limited. 
In so doing, the State should respect all existing legally established rights. Out- 
side of these boundaries there should be no limit. These bottoms can only be 
utilized in large areas by capitalists. It should clearly be the right and privilege 
of the holder of any oyster farm to cultivate his own property with whatsoever 
labor-saving appliances and at whatsoever season of the year his own interest and 
experience may suggest. The State does not have to require of the oyster farmer 
that he shall not destroy his own oyster bed in order to gather his annual crop of 
oysters. His own interest should be his safest guide. The right to use oyster 
dredges run by steam (such dredges as are in common use in Long Island Sound) 
except between the hours of sunset and sunrise should be authorized by a special 
legislative act. This act should require the owner of the steam dredge to give a 
$5,000 bond that he will not use his dredge upon any natural oyster rock as 
delineated in this survey, or upon any planter's ground in any illegal way. The 
natural oyster rocks should be held as they have been surveyed (unless the boun- 
daries of a natural rock should be altered by a special act of the Legislature) for 
the exclusive use of the citizens of this State to be worked under rigid State 
control, with specific State taxes for the privilege of doing so, depending upon the 
character of the boat and apparatus used. The right to use any other than hand 
apparatus on any of the natural oyster beds of the State should only be granted 
after an examination of the bed by a commissioner, who should be authorized by 
law to grant the privilege. The tongman must look mainly to the natural oyster 
beds for his revenue. 

It would seem to be good policy for the State to utilise all money obtained by 
taxing those who gather oysters from her natural oyster beds in the protection 
and restoration of these beds. The fact that the tong tax cannot be made a spe- 
cific tax in advance imposes gross inequalities upon those gathering oysters from 
natural oyster beds. It should be made so inconvenient for the tongman to pay 
the inspector a percentage weekly on the value of the oysters taken during the 



22 PROCEEDINGS OF OYSTER CONVENTION. 

previous week that he will be glad to pay a specific tong tax in advance. A tong 
.tax of $5 per hand-tong would not meet with serious opposition if the money so 
obtained coulu be kept separate from the other State funds, and used to protect, 
preserve and restore the natural oyster beds. 

To recapitulate, I would respectfully bring before this Convention the following 
points for consideration : 

Virginia, to be able to cope successfully with some of her sister States, needs 
industrial schools. She can obtain the money necessary for the founding of such 
schools by the utilization of undeveloped oyster territory, the property of the 
people of the whole State. 

To utilize this territory to the best advantage, she should make final the survey 
marking the boundaries dividing her natural oyster beds from the barren bot- 
toms. Thus only can she give a clear title to barren ground. 

The State should sell to the bighest bidder at a minimum price of $5 per acre 
her barren territory not already rented, requiring that at least one-third of the 
territory so purchased be planted in oysters or shells within the next five years, 
selling to her own citizens the barren bottoms of the tributaries of Chesapeake 
Bay, and opening Chesapeake Bay proper, outside of the natural oyster deposits, 
to foreign capital and enterprise. 

The State should derive her revenue from taxing her oyster farms, leaving the 
proprietor free to work his own territory as his own interest and experience may 
dictate. 

She should reserve her natural oyster beds, now surveyed and mapped, for her 
own citizens, who should pay certain specific taxes on the apparatus used, the 
money so raised to be applied solely to the restoration, protection and preserva- 
tion of these beds. 

The Chair then introduced the next speaker, Henry C. Rowe, 
of New Haven, Conn., who addressed the meeting as follows: 

Mr. President and Gentlemen : 

I feel embarrassed in addressing you after hearing read a paper of such ability 
as that to which you have just listened, and I feel also embarrassed in addressing 
you before the high authorities, scientific and official, who are to follow me. Pos- 
sibly I should feel still more embarrassed if it were necessary for me to try and 
interest you after they have spoken, so of the two evils perhaps I am fortunate in 
encountering the least. 

Aside from all that, I feel as if it were like the old and well-worn simile of 
" bringing coals to Newcastle " for me to say anything about oysters to an audience, 
composed of representative men in the great State of Virginia and of the law- 
makers of the State of Virginia, for from my youth I have been impressed with 
an admiration for your law-makers, as I have for your great statesmen and great 
soldiers. 

But since I have been in Richmond this last day and a half, I have become in- 
debted to you, and especially to my friend Mr. Valentine and his immediate 
friends, for so many courtesies and such a kindly welcome — this being my first 
visit to Richmond — that if I can say a word which will be of the least interest to 
you I am pleased to do so. 

But you wish me to say something about oysters. Those I had yesterday I be- 
lieve were called Lynnhavens. I have had no better m six months, I am sure ; 



PROCEEDINGS OF OYSTER CONVENTION. 23 

and as oysters are said to be the best brain food, I do not wonder at the great 
number of Virginia's famous and successful men, if they have eaten these oysters ; 
and I do not suppose your law-makers of the present day will fail to avail them- 
selves of the opportunity to follow in the footsteps of their distinguished predeces- 
sors in this particular. I have no doubt that they will be able to consider all the 
questions concerning oysters with the guidance and advice of the experts in that 
line which your own State contains, so I will not venture to express any opinion or 
advocate anything concerning the grounds in Virginia, about which I know little 
or nothing, but will tell you in a few words about the industry in our own State. 

In 1874 oyster cultivation was unknown outside of the rivers, bays and harbors 
of Connecticut, and I might say the land-locked waters enclosed by some small 
islands in the vicinity ; but about that time I ventured to take a reservation of 
some hundred acres out in the open sound, with reference to which my incredu- 
lous neighbors made many unfavorable comments. I paid one dollar per acre for 
the ground, and went on buying until I am at present interested in about 15,000 acres 
in all, some of which I am proud to say is worth now about $100 per acre. When I 
made my first purchases, my neighbors were wont to call me a * * * * fool ; 
since then, they have changed their views and use the epithet of * * * * monopolist. 

The firm of which I have the honor to be the head went through a long series 
of difficulties and obstacles, which it would be but weariness for you to hear. We 
had to meet the opposition of a large class of our citizens, who were prejudiced 
against oyster planting, and we had to make many mistakes ourselves. There is a 
good deal to learn about the oyster industry. I don't know much about it myself, but 
I have given it a good deal of attention for some twenty years. In the course of 
our experience we have spent about $200,000 in experiments, which did not 
amount to anything, in addition to some experiments which did. 

We now hold a large territory, under the laws of the State of Connecticut, most 
of which lies under deep water, which we try to cultivate in our poor way. To 
do this we use three steamers, which are capable of taking up and discharging in 
a day 3,900 bushels. One of them has taken up 2,500 bushels in a day, and 
another 2,075, and by using these we were able to work when the ice is heavy and 
we could not use small boats, nor would sailing vessels be available. I presume, 
however, that in this latitude you would not have the ice to contend with that 
we do. 

Then we have natural enemies of the oyster. The " Drill," which bores a hole 
in the shell and sucks out the contents ; the " Star Fish," which clasps the oyster 
with its arms, so tight as to keep its shell from opening at all, and actually suffo- 
cates it ; and the " Periwinkle," which introduces its stomach between the shells 
of the oyster — the stomach being a fine membrane thinner than a lady's veil — 
and commits as flat a burglary as ever was perpetrated. In addition to those, I 
am told that the great storms we have had in the past year have been very disas- 
trous to the oyster interest — one of which, last spring, was estimated to have de- 
stroyed 3,000,000 bushels of oysters ; but the man who made that estimate I don't 
think could have known much about it, although I am satisfied there were a great 
many destroyed. 

It would perhaps be more modest, and possibly of more benefit to you, if I 
should tell you of some of the things which might be considered mistakes on the 
part of the management of the oyster industry in Connecticut. I notice in the 
very able report of your former Governor, in the report of your committee, and I 
might add also in the very able paper of Capt. Baylor, who preceded me, that 



24 PROCEEDINGS OF OYSTER CONVENTION. 

measures are suggested, or advocated, whereby your State may receive a large reve- 
nue from your magnificient resources for the oyster industry. This our State has 
failed to do. It has been represented that Connecticut bad not at that time the 
need of the revenue, which as I judge by these papers Virginia does need. I see 
from the suggestions made that it is the purpose of the State to derive this revenue 
from the sale or lease of its grounds, which, so far as I am advised, I see no reason 
why it may not; though in our own State we sold the ground for $1.00 per acre, 
giving a permanent title for this small sum, to ground which is now worth, much 
of it perhaps, $100 per acre. As the largest buyer of this ground, by several 
thousand acres, I have no personal fault to find with that policy ; but the State of 
Connecticut sold its grounds at an expense, up to the year 1888, of eighty- 
four thousand and odd dollars, when the total sum received for them only 
amounted to $57,000, and out of that 18,000 acres proved worthless and were re- 
turned to the State, under a provision that ground which proved unavailable could 
be returned, and the buyer should be reimbursed the payment he had made 
for it ; so that when the sales of our grounds were over, substantially all the 
valuable ground was sold, and the State received for it only about $40,000, while 
the expense incurred in selling it and in the administration of the business con- 
nected with it amounted to about $85,000 ; that is, to say, the State has disposed of 
the grounds and spent all the money it got for them and $45,000 besides. Of 
course if it is your purpose to derive a considerable revenue from the sale of your 
grounds, I cannot advise you to follow the example of the State of Connecticut in 
disposing of them. 

We do, however, pay a tax upon our grounds. They are now assessed at what 
is regarded as the market value, and we pay to the State directly one per cent, 
tax, which amounts to something like $2,000 per year net revenue. There are 
also, as you know, indirect benefits accruing to the State from the industry, which 
of course you can estimate yourself. 

So many gentlemen are to follow me — gentlemen who, I know, can interest you 
more than I — that I will not attempt to add anything further at present, but thank 
your for your courteous attention and for all the kindness which I have expe- 
rienced since I have been in Richmond ; and I will add that I hope I will see 
some of you in New Haven at some future day. 

The Chair then introduced the next speaker, Lieutenant Francis 
Winslow, of North Carolina, who spoke as follows: 

Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen: 

I have to thank you for the honor and compliment you have paid me in in- 
viting me to address you to-day. And it is all the greater satisfaction to me from 
the fact that it was in Virginia, now nearly twenty years ago, that I began my 
investigation of the oyster beds and study of the oyster industry. At that time 
very little was known by the general public either of the life of the oyster, of the 
oyster beds, or of the oyster industry. Yet that industry was then not only the 
largest fishing industry in the countiy, but the largest in the world. It employed 
more men and more capital, produced larger revenues and larger products than 
not only any other fishery, but than almost all the others put together. Yet, not- 
withstanding those facts, so little was known of the conditions under which this 
great and remunerative industry existed, that the very source of prosperity— nay, 



PROCEEDINGS OF OYSTER CONVENTION. 25 

of its very existence— was being heedlessly destroyed. And, strange as it may 
seem, the efforts' of those most directly interested in and dependent upon the 
oyster industry were mainly directed to a selfish struggle to be first in race of 
destruction. Those who consumed the product gave little or no heed to the strife ; 
the war between the tongers and dredgers, between the packers ana fi£ Ct mers, 
between one method or the other of despoiling the public property, was con- 
sidered merely a local matter ; legislatures from time to time iuterfered in favor 
of one class or another, but no measures worthy of note were adopted having 
as a fundamental principle the maintenance of the industry It was only after 
the patient and disinterested investigations of the men of science, when the fact 
became evident that some measures must be taken, that the alarm was sounded. 
Since then many methods and plans have been devised and many policies adopted. 
There is not now an oyster-growing State on the Atlantic seaboard where the 
oyster question is not a live and, in too many instances, an embarrassing question 
for the consideration of business-men and statesmen. So great has been the 
change! A topic which a few years ago awakened only ridicule, has brought 
together this assemblage. A subject which, but ten years back, was considered 
too trivial to occupy the attention of any but a few indigent oyster-men and a few 
theoretical enthusiasts, has at last reached an importance it does and always has 
intrinsically merited. It has at last become apparent that, to paraphrase the lan- 
guage of Prof. Moebins, the German authority, the preservation of the oyster in- 
dustry is "a question of statesmanship." 

As one of the " theoretical enthusiasts," I take some small pride and much grati- 
fication in this change in the order of things. To me it seems the forerunner of 
better days to come and the presage of an industry existing upon a broader and 
firmer foundation ; employing yet larger capital and a far greater numbers of people ; 
returning greater profits ; paying better wages ; ensuring lower prices and better 
quality to consumers, and greatly enhancing the general welfare. 

It is not my purpose to occupy your time with any elaborate discussion of the 
biological or statistical aspects of the subject. The former would be hardly appro- 
priate and the latter are proverbially dry. Except to the special student, neither 
have much of interest. Those who would have intimate knowledge of the life 
of the oyster and oyster beds, I refer to the publications on the subject of the 
TJ. S. Fish Commission and U. S. Coast Survey ; to the reports of the Connecticut 
and Maryland Oyster and Fish Commissions ; to the writings of Rice, Lugger, Goode, 
Rathbone, Ryder, I)eane, and, last and most important, Dr. W. K. Brooks, of the 
Johns Hopkins University. For statistics, to the U. S. Census of 1880, Ingersoll's 
Monograph, the publications of U. S. Coast Survey and Fish Commission, and the 
reports of the various Shell Fish Commissions along the coast. There is a great 
mass of very valuable information to be found in all these, and in its way not less 
valuable will be found a study of the foreign, especially the French, literature on 
the subject. But to attempt even the briefest synopsis of all that has been written 
about the oyster in the last twenty years, would consume far more time than I 
have any right to ask or you have power to give. I must, therefore, perforce 
speak ex cathedra. 

From circulars sent me by the Chamber of Commerce, from publications in the 
newspapers, from the messages of His Excellency, Governor McKinney, and from 
many other sources, I learn that the people of Virginia are realizing the straits to 
which its formerly great oyster business is reduced and the danger of extinction 
which now threatens it. I also learn that they realize at last that a vast and now 



26 PROCEEDINGS OF OYSTER CONVENTION. 

unproductive territory within its borders can be utilized with advantage to indi- 
viduals and to the community. For the purpose of pointing out, so far as I am 
able, the best method of averting the threatened evil and bringing about a return 
of prosperity, I am to address you. 

The-? v ^, vt'ide-spread belief that if the natural beds were "preserved" — that 
is, adequately protected — prosperity would ensue. That is a mistake. Prosperity 
is not due to the presence of oysters in the water, no matter in how large a number. 
It is their presence in the market which is of value. The fact that they are not 
now in the market in sufficient numbers, and cannot be gotten there, is the reason 
the industry languishes. A further diminution of the supply cannot improve the 
situation. The patient is dying of inanition. We cannot bring about his recovery 
by reducing the already too small amount of sustenance he is now receiving. 
Yet, has any one — can any one — devised any practical scheme of preserving or 
protecting the natural beds which does not require, as most essential to its success, 
a reduction of the fishery of those beds ? Is it not both generally known and 
generally admitted that the deterioration of the beds is entirely due to the exten- 
si T " .aid excessive fishery? Has any remedy ever been suggested other than the 
obvious one of restricting that fishery ? But if the fishery is restricted, the supply 
will be even further diminished, and as it diminishes, the demand will increase, 
and either one of two, and possibly both, results will follow— either the industry 
will seek other localities and other sources of supply or the policy of restriction 
will be overthrown, regardless of ultimate consequences, and " the last condition 
of that man will be worse than the first." Indeed, there is already a movement 
in one of the indicated directions. 

In 1880, Maryland and Virginia supplied 17,400,000 bushels to the market. In 
1888, but 12,500,000 bushels. In 1880, Georgia, Florida and Louisiana supplied 
443,000 bushels. In 1888, 1,079,000 bushels. In the former case the product fell 
off at least one-third. In the latter it more than doubled. In other words, the 
industry is seeking other localities and other sources of supply. In a few years, 
if you do not take care, its ancient home and its natural abiding place — the shores 
of the Chesapeake — will know it no more. 

I start with the rather startling statement that the preservation and protection 
of the natural oyster beds is not the first consideration by any means. It is the 
preservation, protection and, if possible, extension of the industry we must keep 
first in mind. While it is true that in Virginia the industry is largely dependent 
upon the natural beds, it is by no means universally the case. Rhode Island has 
no " natural " beds as we understand them. Yet Rhode Island has a flourishing 
industry. The natural beds both of Connecticut and New York are comparatively 
insignificant, and yearly becoming more so, but in both of those States the industry 
flourishes as it has never done before. Indeed, notwithstanding that Virginia has 
some 150,000 acres of " natural " beds, and New York and Connecticut not more 
than one-tenth as many, I find that in 1888 the two latter States produced some 
3,400,000 bushels, valued at $2,900,000, while Virginia produced some 3,600,000 
bushels, valued at $1,300,000. It is evident, then, that the industry can flourish 
independent of the natural beds. But I will go farther and say that, if it cannot 
exist and flourish independent of the natural' beds, it cannot flourish at all. To 
ignorance of these facts is due much of the trouble and confusion as to policies to 
be adopted. The general belief is, that the maintenance and preservation of the 
natural beds is the maintenance and preservation of the industry. The history of 
many localities shows quite the reverse to be the case; and, paradoxical as it may 



PROCEEDINGS OF OYSTER CONVENTION. 27 

appear, the deterioration of the natural beds, and in some cases their extinction, 
has been closely followed by a revival and extension of the industry and increase 
of prosperity among those engaged in it. The reason is not far to seek. So long 
as nature provided the source of supply in quantities more or less adequate, man 
was content to gather it. But when nature failed to supply, then man came to the 
rescue, and, as is well known, human agencies are less wasteful and less expensive 
than natural ones. 

If, then, the preservation of the natural beds is not and the preservation of the 
industry is the main and essential object, how is the latter to be brought about, 
and what are the relations, and how close between the natural beds and the 
industry ? 

The industry can be maintained, preserved and extended in one way, and by 
one method only — the supply must be kept up to the demand. In keeping up that 
supply is the relation the natural beds have to the industry, and the closeness of 
that relation is directly proportional to the adequacy of the supply. 

The question is, Can the natural beds of Virginia, even with the past unrestricted 
fishery, maintain the supply ? I would say, emphatically, that they cannot. The 
evidence to that effect is conclusive. In 1880, Virginia produced 6,800,000 bushels. 
In 1888,3,600,000 bushels, a falling off of nearly 50%. Since 1879 the price of 
oysters in the wholesale markets has, on an average, increased nearly 100%. The 
increase in the demand, which is evident, must occur and continue with increased 
traffic facilities, and population is thus met by a diminution of the supply. Yet 
the increased demand, bringing as it must increased prices, should and does spur 
up an increased fishery. But, notwithstanding the more strenuous efforts of the 
oystermen — and, in time, on account of them — the supply has fallen off about 
one-half. Plainly the natural beds are inadequate. 

And this is not peculiar to Virginia. The industry in both Delaware and Mary- 
land, as in Virginia, is largely dependent upon the supply of the natural beds. In 
Delaware the product has fallen off from 300,000 bushels in 1880 to about 42,000 
bushels in 1888. In Maryland, in the same period, from about 11,000,000 bushels 
to about 9,000,000 bushels. Contrast those figures with the statistics of Rhode 
Island, Connecticut and New York for the same time. In Rhode Island the in- 
crease is from 163,000 to 189,000 bushels. In Connecticut, from about 300,000 to 
1,500,000 bushels. In New York, from about 1,000,000 to 1,900,000 bushels. As I 
have before said, none of these latter States have any natural beds of consequence. 

The natural beds being unable to meet the demand, we must then turn to some 
other source of supply if the industry is not to languish and ultimately expire. 
But no other som - ce of supply exists. It must be created, and in creating it a 
peck of trouble is usually to be found. That trouble arises mainly from igno- 
rance. It seems almost impossible for people to realize that an oyster can exist 
elsewhere than on a so-called " natural bed." It might with equal reason be 
urged that a potato could only grow upon the particular foot of ground to which 
it was indigenous, or that horses could not live in America because they were not 
found here by the discoverers of the country. It must, of course, be evident to 
every intelligent person that, given the conditions necessary to life, the oyster, as 
any other animal, can live anywhere. But the idea is very prevalent, and espe- 
cially among oystermen, that these conditions can and do exist on the natural 
beds alone. As they generally express it, if God Almighty intended oysters to 
live elsewhere, He'd have put them there. Believing that the animal cannot live 
anywhere but on those areas, they have been accustomed to work at will and with 



28 PROCEEDINGS OF OYSTER CONVENTION. 

entire freedom. They are suspicious of any attempt at improvement of other 
areas and of legislation to that end. They have no faith in the sincerity of the 
effort, and hazily, perhaps, but none the less strongly, apprehend a scheme to 
deprive them of a privilege so long enjoyed as to have become, in their minds, an 
inalienable right. No sooner, then, is the proposition made to increase the sup- 
ply by any of the various methods of cultivation than, as a rule, the oystermen, 
to a man, arise and oppose it. It is needless to say that their opposition has 
usually been effective. They compose a considerable portion of the voting popu- 
lation of the tidewater counties. They are supposed from their vocation to know 
most of the subject, and naturally are also supposed to know what is best for 
them. That they do not know makes no difference. As I have heard it expressed, 
the thing may be good enough ; but if the people don't want it, what's the use of 
giving it to them ? There is no use. Unless they want it and appreciate it, they 
will have none of it. 

But, as I understand it, the object of this Convention is not to force theories or 
policies down any man's throat, but to initiate a " campaign of education." That 
I think a very wise decision. For I am sure, after many years of study of this 
question and some years of practical business association with it, that when the 
public once understands the facts, the course I and others have so long advocated 
will be universally and unanimously adopted, and that until they do understand 
the facts, it is useless to force them to adopt anything at all. What, then, are the 
facts? Briefly these: 

The oyster crop, mainly derived from natural beds, has fallen off nearly 50 per 
cent, in eight years. 

The industry is languishing and likely to expire from inanition. It is in pro- 
cess of transference to other localities. 

The improvement, protection and preservation of the natural beds can only be 
accomplished by methods which will necessarily further diminish the supply of 
oysters, and thus increase the very evils from which the industry is now suffering. 

That some 650,000 acres of bottom, now barren, is owned by the State, is sus- 
ceptible of cultivation, and will, if cultivated, or improved, yield a harvest of 
oysters of great magnitude. 

1 Here, then, are the facts. Can there be any doubt as to what is the wisest 
course to pursue? Will any one hesitate to say, Improve the barren area; culti- 
vate it ; let it bring forth and multiply ? 

But who is to do the improving and cultivating? Not the State; the cost for- 
bids it. An acre of oyster bottom cannot be improved, planted and cultivated for 
less than about $10 per annum. The State cannot spend $(3,500,000 per annum on 
such a project, and if the State could, such procedure would not only be foreign 
to our whole system of government, but the history of a somewhat similar attempt 
by the French Government shows that disastrous financial failure would result. 

If not the State, then the individual must make the improvement, and to induce 
the individual to attempt so vast an undertaking it must be made plain to him 
that it will be profitable. Here, then, is another part of your " campaign of edu- 
cation " which greatly requires attention. Without going into details, I will say 
that you must show primarily two things, they being absolutely essential : First. 
That the existing natural conditions are favorable to the life of the oyster. That 
is, that while the animal does not now, it can live on the, at present, unoccupied 
050,000 acres. Second. That what nature permits to exist man will not permit to 
be destroyed. In other words, the security of the property must be guaranteed. 



PROCEEDINGS OF OYSTEE CONVENTION. 29 

To show that the natural conditions are favorable should not be difficult. The 
results would justify an elaborate physical survey and biological investigation of 
your waters. I see from Governor McKinney's recent message that the receipts 
from the oyster industry in 1893 exceeded the disbursements by about $15,000. 
The surplus could not be, in my opinion, expended more wisely and advantage- 
ously than in the manner I have indicated. 

To guarantee the security of the property, the action of your Legislature must 
be invoked. Here you will encounter many theories and ideas of a more or less 
conflicting nature. But my experience shows two, at least, that are fundamental. 
From the standpoint of the Legislature the demand is that the State should 
receive a direct revenue of considerable proportion from the property. From the 
standpoint of the cultivator, that he should have an indefeasible title to his 
ground, and that he should be protected in the use and enjoyment of it. As the 
two requirements are not diametrically opposed it is a matter of no great diffi- 
culty to adjust the situation. 

I take it, it is not the policy of any State to make money out of its citizens, but 
to adopt such measures as will promote their prosperity ; for, after all, they are 
the State. The main object here being to revive and extend the industry, no 
question of a few dollars of purchase money or of taxes should be allowed to 
hamper the progess of the movement. It will require over $20,000,000' to improve 
your 650,000 acres. The investment of such a sum in any business is of far more 
value to the State and the community than almost any sum you might derive 
from leases, sales or taxes. Indeed, if no other way could be found to induce 
men to attempt the improvement of tracts of land lying many feet under water 
and subject to so many vicissitudes of weather and other natural conditions, I 
would cheerfully give the franchise or property without price. It must be remem- 
bered that it is not the sale or other disposal of bottom that is the object to be 
attained, but the building up of the industry. 

Next, on the part of the cultivator. He asks very little— merely that he and 
his business be treated as all other business is. He will not improve bottoms unless 
he is sure of reaping the reward of his labors. He will neither buy nor lease 
from the State unless he is assured that the State will keep its contract with him. 
He will not improve the property unless he is certain that he will be free in its 
management, secure from depredation, and undisturbed in its enjoyment. So far 
as my experience goes, he asks no especial privileges or immunities ; he does ask 
that lie shall be subject to no especial discriminination. Considering that he is 
embai'king in a hazardous, and, in many respects and in many localities, an untried 
business ; considering that he is in most cases required to pay at the outset more 
for his land and more for his improvement of it than his brother farmer on shore, 
his request that he should be put on a par with that brother farmer does not seem, 
either unreasonable or unjust. Surely, if by granting so mild a demand a great 
industry can be revived or built up, there should be no hesitancy in doing it. 

I have only attempted to generally outline the existing condition of things and 
the general policy to be followed. The history of the industries of nearly every 
locality shows a wonderful uniformity and sequence of events. The industry 
springs into being through the existence of, and is supported for a time by, the 
natural beds. Those beds sooner or later become impoverished and ultimately 
practicallv extinct. The industry languishes, and in some instances dies. The 
private cultivator, stimulated by the demand, enters the held. Through his 
efforts a revival is brought about. The market is more abundantly supplied; the 



30 PROCEEDINGS OF OYSTER CONVENTION. * 

stock is of a superior quality and of less cost. A larger number of a better class 
of laborers is employed ; the revenue to the State is increased ; the wages of labor 
more certain and at advanced rates, and the general welfare and prosperity of the 
community much greater than under the previous condition of things. That Vir- 
ginia may soon reach this latter and enviable result I sincerely hope ; and it was 
with the desire to lend my small aid in bringing it about that I have ventured to 
address you. But in this, as in most things, it is well to make haste slowly. 
When, however, through efforts such as have brought us together to-day, the 
people of the Commonwealth have become convinced as to the true and funda- 
mental principles upon which the industry rests, you need have no fear but that 
once again the waters will teem with oyster boats, that canneries and packing- 
houses will again open their doors, and that the Old Dominion will resume once 
more her proud position at the head of America's greatest fishery. I thank you, 
gentlemen, for your attention. 

Col. Marshall McDonald, United States Fish Commissioner, was 
next introduced by the Chair, and addressed the Convention as 
follows : 

Gentlemen of tlie Convention : 

I am here not as Commissioner of Fisheries. I come as a citizen of Virginia, 
interested in every movement in the State that may in any way contribute to the 
prosperity of the State. As the Federal Commissioner of the Fisheries, it has 
been my duty to conduct an investigation into the condition of the industry at all 
points along our coast ; it has also been my duty to send into other countries 
trained experts to study the methods that are pursued abroad in the culture of the 
oyster, in order that I might publish and make known to our people here who are 
interested what are the particular conditions under which the industry is carried 
on at other places, and what advantages might be derived from a study of their 
knowledge and experience. 

Now, what I have to say to you to-night is based upon the experience and study 
which I have necessarily had to give to this question. In 1880, as Commissioner 
of Fisheries for the State of Virginia, it was made my duty by the Legislature to 
investigate the condition of our fisheries and oyster industries, and report to the 
Legislature. The report that I made then expressed substantially the views that 
I hold to-day, that the very essential foundation of successful prosperity in the 
oyster industry is in taking such steps as, under the Constitution of the State and 
with due regard to the best interests of all concerned, would place it under private 
enterprise, so that private energy and capital could be enlisted, and the industry 
extended to the barren area, which under present conditions can never be brought 
about. That report went to the Board of the Chesapeake and its Tributaries, 
which in that day was not only the cradle, but the grave of every proposition 
which looked to the industry of Tidewater. The whole industry then was re- 
garded as purely a local interest, and no views which did not measure down to the 
narrow personal views of those directly concerned in it, could pass through the 
doors of that committee and have consideration by the Legislature. 

I come before you to-day under very different auspices. Virginia has been ad- 
vancing — in her conservative way, it is true, but still progressing — and I find that 
under the lead of her Governor, who has just retired, she has entered upon a new 



PROCEEDINGS OF OYSTER CONVENTION. 31 

policy of progress and life and development, and that she is now prepared to move 
in a direction which will in my opinion result in an increase five-fold, maybe ten- 
fold, of her oyster production. 

What have you done ? I might say first, what is the proper policy of the State 
in regard to the oyster industry ? It is in my judgment only a part of the general 
policy which the State must apply to all the industries within its borders, whether 
agricultural, the mines, the quarries or the water. It is a business of the State. 
What will she do ? Every industry should have equal and impartial protection 
under the law ; no industry should be compelled to bear unequal burden, and no 
industry should have exceptional advantage ; there should be no restraints im- 
posed not necessary to the general interests, and the fullest and freest activity. 

The policy always insisted upon in Tidewater, is that the fishing is in common ; 
that no right of individual ownership should exist. If that is good policy to apply 
to the water, apply it to the land. Suppose the State were to declare that there 
should be no individual ownership of land ; that the wheat harvest should be in 
common ; that the crops should be gathered in common ; that there should be no 
protection of individual enterprise. What would be the condition of your land, 
or what would be the condition of your mines under such a policy — more particu- 
larly your agricultural lands, which depend upon labor ? Why, we would have 
none. Just the condition our lands would be in under such a policy is practically 
the condition of the water, except that with the wonderful fertility of the water 
we do not as quickly feel the effects of this destruction by common fishing, as we 
would on the land if held in common. 

I say the State has gone forward one step. She has adopted a new policy which 
must result in great benefit, when instead of trusting to the magistrate's report to 
determine what are natural oyster beds, she has enacted into a law a bill which 
defines by metes and bounds what really are the natural oyster beds of the State ; 
you need no longer be uncertain as to what constitutes public or private grounds, 
and that is one of the most important steps taken in the history of this fishing. 
The law, however, is defective as regards the provision in the body of the bill re- 
garding the discovery of new natural rock. Under your State Commission, and 
under an engineer officer especially designated for that purpose, you have com- 
pleted the survey, and after that it was to be supposed that every natural rock was 
included ; but this provision regarding any other natural rock that may be found, 
still leaves the uncertainty which existed before the passage of the bill. Now I 
say the first step is to make the delineation of the public ground absolute. When 
that is out of the way, what has the State done? I can testify of my own knowl- 
edge that in the allotment of those lands, they have been very generous ; there 
are included hundred of acres on which there is not a bushel of oysters ; but it 
was wise to do this ; it was wise to give to the tonger everything claimed by his 
representatives, the county commissioners. Now this having been done, I think 
the State has given due consideration to the interest of all that body of men who 
are engaged in tonging; they have assigned to them the full territory from which 
they have been accustomed to draw their sustenance. 

You have a broad area of about 600,000 acres, I believe, land on which oysters 
do not grow naturally, but which is capable of a production far greater than the 
natural beds, and the State proposes to turn that over to individuals, under a sys- 
tem of license. Now there are obligations on the State, in connection with that, 
which have got to be regarded. As soon as men begin to take possession of the 
bottoms under the State law, there are going to be questions raised hs to bounda- 



32 PROCEEDINGS OF OYSTER CONVENTION. 

ries, and there will be constant controversies in regard to boundaries, and in order 
to make that whole system satisfactory and effectual, it will be necessary to estab- 
lish these boundaries by some permanent marks on the land. That, I think, the 
State should look to. 

Now gentlemen, under this system of leasing, men are only going to take up the 
bottoms that are already suitable for planting ; you know it is but a small quantity 
of the bottoms that are suitable. The bottom should have a certain consistency, 
not soo soft, so that the shell will not sink into the mud, and it must be in a loca- 
tion so that the tides will carry food to the oyster. The man who gets these bot- 
toms, under the presence license system of the State, at one dollar per acre, is get- 
ting them at a bargain — there is no question about that — but after having appro- 
priated all of that land, there is an immense body of land in the State which is 
not fit for planting unless the bottom is made suitable ; they are great areas of 
mud. By putting down shells, they may be turned into hard bottoms and made 
oyster-producing grounds ; or sand-bottoms can be covered with clay, so as to form 
a suitable bottom in which the development can take place ; but that takes money, 
and I don't believe the present law of the State affords any encouragement for 
that sort of development, which I consider the most important development of 
the State, because it takes up not only barren ground, but barren ground which 
requires investment of labor and money, all of which comes in to swell the re- 
sources of the State. 

Now I do not believe that under the license system all that area of ground 
would be taken up ; the uncertain tenure would preclude it, and I think the true 
policy of the State is to sell in fee simple, thus promoting the expenditure of capi- 
tal and trusting to the enhancement of values in consequence of the development 
to secure an increased revenue by tax. 

There is still another question, one unsettled in the State, to which it seems to 
me well to call the attention of the Convention and those who are interested, and 
that is the uncertainty of riparian rights. I don't suppose any riparian owner in 
the State has any proper conception of his rights. I think the settlement of that 
is one of the most important points towards the establishment of a complete policy 
in reference to the oyster. What I have said in regard to the bottoms, which re- 
quire the investment of capital, I would say also of that vast area of land which 
lies between the limits of low and high water— that vast region of swamp and salt 
marsh, which produces nothing but here and there a terrapin or a crab. Those 
salt marshes occupy most important relations to the oysters ; of course, the oyster 
must live, and it lives by feeding off of the microscopic particles in the water, 
most of which flows from these marsh}' flats and swamps. To make hard bottoms 
out of them would entail an expenditure which is inconceivable almost, but they 
could be made valuable as food producing areas for the oyster, I think. You have 
vast regions of flat which are fit for nothing, so far as the State is concerned or the 
riparian owner is concerned ; one hundred acres would produce the food necessary 
to feed an hundred acres of oysters closely crowded together ; but if authority 
was given to enter upon an area of that sort and enclose it by dykes, the food 
would breed and be floated out by the tides to where the oysters are massed 
together five and ten thousand bushels to the acre ; so I think the question of 
promoting the acquisition of the shore line and of certain classes of bottom ought 
to be one of the most important points in bringing out and systematizing a general 
policy to cover all conditions of the oyster question. 



PROCEEDINGS OF OYSTER CONVENTION. 33 

At the conclusion of Colonel McDonald's address, Professor 
Brooks, of Johns Hopkins University, was introduced by the Chair- 
man, and addressed the Convention as follows: 

Mr. President and Gentlemen : 

"When I received the invitation of the committee to address you to-day, I 
debated for some time as to the subject upon which I was to speak. The oyster 
question is a many-sided one, and for nearly twenty years I have been engaged 
with one phase of it — the attempt to teach our people of Maryland the necessity 
of supplementing the bounty of Nature by the industry of man. I have got so 
far in this educational campaign of eighteen years that our people now tell me 
that Providence has put oysters wherever oysters should be, and that therefore 
all people should be restrained by law from growing oysters in advance of Provi- 
dence. This is, therefore, not a very hopeful topic for us to discuss ; so I decided 
to speak on another topic, and to try and tell you of the world of the oyster, in 
order that you may be able to see the oyster at home and to understand in this 
way the value and importance of the oyster for the service of man. I shall 
speak, then, for a few moments on " The World of the Oyster." 

The vast number of oysters which the Chesapeake Bay has furnished in the 
past is ample proof of its fertility ; but it is difficult to give any definite statement 
as to the value of the oyster beds in past years, although there is good reason for 
believing that since the business of packing oysters for shipment to the interior 
was established, in 1834, nearly 400,000,000 bushels of oysters have been taken 
from our waters. 

This inconceivably vast amount of delicate, nutritious food has been yielded by 
our waters without any aid from man. It is a harvest which no one has sown — a 
free gift from bounteous nature. 

The fact that our waters have withstood this enormous draft upon them, and 
have continued for more than half a century to meet demands which are continu- 
ally increasing, is most conclusive evidence of their fertility and value, and the 
citizens of Maryland and Virginia may well point with pride to the boundless re- 
sources of our magnificent bay. 

Four hundred million bushels of oysters is a vast quantity, and it testifies to the 
immeasurable value of our waters ; but every one who has studied the subject, 
either on its scientiiic side or in the light of the experience of other countries, 
knows that the harvest of oysters from our bay lias never, even at its best, made 
any approach to what it might have been if we had aided the bounty of nature 
by human industry and intelligence. 

Four hundred million bushels is the wild crop which has been supplied by 
nature without any aid from man, and it compares with what we might have ob- 
tained from our waters in about the same way that the nuts and berries which are 
gathered in our swamps and forests compare with the harvest from our cultivated 
fields and gardens and orchards. When we have learned to make best use of our 
opportunities, and when the oyster beds of the bay have been brought to perfec- 
tion, a harvest of 400,000,000 bushels in half a century will not be regarded as 
evidence of fertility. 

It will take many years of labor to bring the wdiole Bay under thorough cultiva- 
tion, and it' will require a great army of instructors and skilled farmers, and great 
sums of money, but the expense and labor will be much less than an equal area 
of land above water requires. While it may be far away, the time will surely 



34 PROCEEDINGS OF OYSTER CONVENTION. 

come when the oyster harvest each year will be fully equal to the total harvest of 
the last fifty years, and it will be obtained without depleting or exhausting the 
beds and without exposing the laborers to hardship or unusual risks. 

This is not the baseless speculation of an idle fancy. Our opportunities for 
raising oysters are unparalleled, and in other countries much less valuable grounds 
have, by cultivation, been made to yield oysters at a rate per acre which, in our 
own great beds, would carry our annual harvest very far beyond tne sum of all 
the oysters which have ever been used by the packers of Maryland and Virginia. 
This is capable of proof by evidence from other countries, but it may be proved 
with equal conclusiveness by the natural history of the oyster. The Chesapeake 
Bay is one of the rich agricultural regions of the earth, and its fertility can be 
compared only with that of the valleys of the Nile and the Ganges and other 
great rivers. It owes its fertility to the same causes which have enabled the Nile 
valley to support a dense human population for untold ages without any loss of 
fertility ; but it is adapted for producing only one crop — the oyster. 

All human food is vegetable in its origin, and whether we eat plants and their 
products directly or use beef, mutton, fish, fowls, or eggs as food, we are carried 
back to the vegetable kingdom, for if there were no plants all animals would 
starve at once. Every one knows that this is absolutely true of all terrestrial 
animals, and all naturalists know that it is equally true of sea food. The blue fish 
preys on smaller fishes ; many of these on still smaller ones ; these in their turn 
on minute Crustacea ; these upon still smaller animals, and these pasture on the 
microscopic plants which swarm at the surface of the ocean. However long the 
chain may be, all animals— those of the water as well as those of the land — depend 
upon plants for food, although most of the vegetable life of the ocean is of such a 
character that its existence is known to naturalists alone. 

If there were no plants all animals would starve, and no animal is a direct food- 
producer, for it can furnish nothing except what it has got from plants. Now for 
the purposes of animal life, a small plant is as effective as a large one, for however 
small it may be it still has the power, which is possessed by no animal, to gather 
up the inorganic matter of the earth and to turn it into vegetable matter fit for 
the nourishment of animals. Microscopic plants can do this work as well as great 
forests of lofty trees, if they are numerous enough, for size counts for nothing. 
Every one knows that the sea is rich in animal life ; that it contains great banks 
covered with cod and haddock ; miles and miles of water crowded full of mackerel 
and herring ; and great monsters of the deep, such as the whales and the sharks. 
To a superficial observer the vegetation of the sea seems very scanty, and except 
•for a fringe of sea and along the shore the great ocean seems, so far as plant life is 
concerned, to be a barren desert. If it be true that all animals depend on plants 
for their food, the vegetation of the ocean seems totally inadequate for the support 
of its animal life. 

The microscope shows that its surface swarms with minute plants, most of them 
strange in form and totally unlike any which are familiar. They have nothing in 
common with the well-known trees and herbs and grasses of the land except the 
power to change inorganic matter into food fit for animals. 

Most of these plants are so small that they are absolutely invisible to the un- 
aided eye, and even when they are gathered together in a mass, this looks like 
slimy discolored water and presents no traces of structure. They seem too insig- 
nificant to play any important part in the economy of nature; but the great 
monsters of the deep, beside which the elephant and the ox and the elk are small 
animals, owe their existence to these microscopic plants. 



PROCEEDINGS OF OYSTER CONVENTION. 35 

Their vegetative power is wonderful past all expression. Among land plants, 
corn which yields seed about a hundred fold in a single season, is the emblem of 
fertility ; but a single marine plant, very much smaller than a grain of mustard 
seed is able to increase a hundred fold in a few hours, and if its descendants were 
all to live there would soon be no room for them in the ocean. This stupendous 
fact is almost incredible, but it must be clearly grasped before we can understand 
the economy of the ocean. As countless minute animals are constantly pasturing 
upon them the multiplication of these plants is kept in check ; but in calm 
weather it is no rare thing to find great tracts of water many miles in extent 
packed so full that every drop contains them and the surface forms a slimy film 
which breaks the waves and smooths the water like oil. The so-called " black 
water " of the Arctic and Antarctic oceans — the home and feeding ground of the 
whale — has been shown by the microscope to consist of a mass of these plants 
crowded together until the whole ocean is discolored by them. Through these 
seas of " black water" roam the right whales, the largest animals on earth, gulping 
at each mouthful hundreds of gallons of the little mollusca and Crustacea which 
feed upon the plants. 

In tropical seas ships sometimes sail for days through great floating islands of 
this microscopic vegetation, and the Red Sea owes its name to the tinge given its 
water by great swarms of reddish microscopic plants. The plant-life of the ocean 
is ample for the support of all its animal-life, just as the vegetation of the land 
gives a maintenance to all terrestrial animals. 

The source of the food of animals is the vegetable world. What is the source 
of the food of plants ? 

Most ©f it consists of mineral matter derived from the crust of the earth ; but 
before this can be used by plants it must be dissolved in water. The solid rocks 
cannot maintain life until they have been ground down and dissolved ; and, in the 
form of frost and rain, water is continually breaking down and wearing away the 
hard rocks and carrying the fragments down to lower levels to form the fertile 
land of the hillsides and meadows and valleys. As the roots of plants penetrate 
this loose material they gather up the mineral food which is dissolved by rain. 
They convei't this into their own substance, and as their leaves fall and their 
trunks decay they help to build up the leaf-mould and meadow -loam which are 
so well adapted for supporting vegetable life. Each year the heavy rains wash 
this light rich soil into the rivers, and as these cut into their banks at time of 
flood, they carry away the arable land, which has been built up so slowly, and 
sweep it to lower levels, until at last it finds its way into the ocean and is lost so 
far as its use to man is concerned. In a long flat river-valley it may be arrested 
for a time, so that man may make use of it, but its final destination is the ocean ; 
and as this has already been errriched by the washings through untold ages, all 
that is most valuable for the support of life is now dissolved in its waters or 
deposited upon its bottom, where man can make no use of it. 

We love to dream of the shipwrecked treasures which lie among the bones of 
the sailors on the sea bottom ; of the galleons sunk and lost with their precious 
cargoes of bullion and jewels from the treasure chambers of the Incas and the 
palaces of Asia ; but all these, and all the 

" Gems of purest ray serene 
The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear "— 

all the thousands of tons of gold and silver which, as chemists tell us, the sea 
holds dissolved in its waters — all these are as nothing when compared with these 
precious washings from the land of all that fits it for supporting life. 



36 PROCEEDINGS OF OYSTER CONVENTION. 

Man will some time assert his dominion over the fishes of the sea and will 
learn to send out flocks and herds of domesticated marine animals to pasture and 
fatten upon the vegetable life of the ocean and to make its vast wealth of food 
available ; but at present we are able to do little more than to snatch a slight 
tribute from the stream of nutritive material as it comes to temporary rest in the 
valleys of our great rivers on its way to the ocean. 

Every one knows the part which these great river- valleys have played in human 
civilization. In the valley of the Nile, of the Tigris and of the Ganges we find 
the most dense population ; here were the great cities of past ages ; here agricul- 
ture and architecture were developed, and here art, literature and science had 
their birth. 

We owe to the great river-valleys, where the natural fertility of the soil has 
lightened the struggle for bread and has afforded leisure for higher matters, all 
that is most distinctive of civilized man. 

The Chesapeake Bay is a great river- valley — not so large as that of the Nile or 
the Ganges, but of enough consequence to play an important part in human affairs, 
and to support in comfort and prosperity a population as great as that of many 
famous States. It receives the drainage of a vast area of fertile land stretching 
over the marshes and hillsides of nearly one third of New York and nearly all 
of the great agricultural States of Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia. The 
most valuable part of the soil of this great tract of rich farming land, more than 
40,000,000 acres in area, finds its way, sooner or later, into our bay, in whose quiet 
waters it makes a long halt on its journey to the ocean, and it is deposited all 
over the bay in the form of fine light black sediment known as oyster mud. 
This is just as valuable to man and just as fit to nourish plants as the mud which 
settles every year on the rice fields of Egypt. It is a natural fertilizer of inesti- 
mable importance, and it is so rich in organic matter that it quickly putrefies 
when exposed to the sun. In the shallow water of the bay, under the influence 
of the warm sunlight, it produces a luxuriant vegetation ; but the plants which 
grow upon it are almost entirely microscopic and invisible, and their very exist- 
ence is unknown to all except a few naturalists. They are not confined, like 
plants on land, to the surface of the soil, and while they may be found in great 
abundance on the surface of the black mud, they are not restricted to its surface, 
for their food is diffused in solution through the whole body of water, and the 
mud itself is so light that it is in a state of semi-suspension, and the little plants 
have ample room among its particles. On land the plant-producing area is a sur- 
face, but the total plant-producing acreage of the bay is many times greater than 
the superficial area of its bottom. 

As the little plants are bathed on all sides by food they do not have to go 
through the slow process of sucking it up through roots and stems and they grow 
and multiply at a rate which has no parallel in ordinary familiar plants, and they 
would quickly choke up the whole bay if thev were not held in check. Their 
excessive increase is prevented by countless minute animals, which feast upon 
them and turn the plant substance into animal matter, to become in their turn 
food for larger animals. There is no difficulty in finding them in any part of the 
bay by straining the water through fine bolting-cloth. In this way we obtain 
a fine sediment which is shown by the microscope to consist almost entirely of 
them. 

The variety of these microscopic plants and animals is very great and a series 
of large volumes would be needed to describe the microscopic fauna and flora of 



PROCEEDINGS OF OYSTER CONVENTION. 37 

the Chesapeake Bay, which is an exceptionally favorable spot for their growth. 
The exploration of this invisible world with a microscope is an unfailing delight 
to the naturalist ; but at first sight it seems to have no bearing upon the practical 
matters of human life. 

The ability to turn inorganic matter into food for animals and for man does not 
depend on size, and in this respect the microscopic flora of the bay is as efficient 
as corn or potatoes and infinitely more active and energetic. 

In the oyster we have an animal most nutritious and palatable, especially 
adapted for living in the soft mud of bays and estuaries and for gathering up the 
microscopic inhabitants and turning them into delicate food for man. 

The fitness of the oyster for this peculiar work — for bringing back to us the 
mineral wealth which the rivers steal from our hillsides and meadows — is so com- 
plete and admirable, so marvellous and instructive, that it cannot be compre- 
hended in its complete significance without a thorough knowledge of the anatomy 
and embryology of the oyster. It is an animal which has been especially evolved 
for life in the black mud of bays and sounds, and the more we study its structure 
the more profoundly are we impressed with its fitness for making our inheritance 
in the black mud available for the service of men. 

A thorough knowledge of the structure of the oyster will teach us much more 
than this. It will show the capacity of the oyster for cultivation, and it will also 
show us why its cultivation is necessary, and why our resources can never be 
fully developed by oysters in a state of nature. We have never enjoyed the hun- 
dredth part of our advantage, nor can we ever do so if we continue to rely upon 
nature alone. This fact, which has been proved again and again by statistics, is 
perfectly clear to one who knows what an oyster is and what are its relations to 
the world around it. As its world is chiefly microscopic, no one can penetrate 
into the secrets of its structure and history without training in the technical 
methods of the laboratory ; and business contact with the oyster cannot possibly, 
with any amount of experience, give any real insight into its habits and mode of 
life. 

I speak on this subject with the diffidence of one who has been frequently 
snubbed and repressed, for, while I am myself sure that the man who tonged 
oysters long before I was born may be mistaken in some particulars, it is easier to 
acquiesce when he asserts his right to know all about it than to argue with him. 
So I have learned to be submissive in the presence of the elderly gentleman who 
studied the embryology of the oyster when, years ago as a boy, he visited his 
grandfather on the Eastern Shore, and to listen with deference to the shucker as 
he demonstrates to me at his raw box, with his hammer and knife for dissecting 
instruments, the error of my notions of the structure of the animal. 
* Still, I may be permitted to state that I am not totally without experience. I 
have dredged oysters in every part of the Bay from Swan Point and the Bodkin to 
Craney Island and Lynnhaven. I have tonged oysters in the waters of four 
different States, and in the warm waters of the South, where frost is unknown and 
oysters flourish above low water mark. I have enjoyed the opportunity to explore 
the natural beds, and have spent months under the broiling tropical sun, wading 
over the sharp shells which cut the feet like knives, studying the oyster at home. 

I have planted oysters ; I have reared them by collecting the floating spat, and 
I have hatched from artificially fertilized eggs more oysters than the number of 
people in the.last census, and I boldly claim enough practical experience to acquit 
me from the charge that my views are theoretical. 

3 



38 PROCEEDINGS OF OYSTER CONVENTION. 

On conclusion of Professor Brooks' address, on motion, the Con- 
vention adjourned until 8 o'clock P. M. 



EVENING SESSION. 

The Chair called the Convention to order promptly at 8 o'clock, 
after which, on motion, a recess of ten minutes was taken pending 
the arrival of some of the delegates who had not yet put in an 
appearance. 

The Chair then stated that ex-Goveruor McKinney, who had been 
announced to speak, was not present, but that the meeting was now 
open for remarks or resolutions from any gentleman present, and 
invited any one, whether delegates or not, who had any information 
on the oyster question, to address the meeting. 

Captain Orris A. Browne, of Northampton, then made the fol- 
lowing address: 

Mr. President: 

The oyster question is of vast importance to Salt-water Virginia; of great 
intei-est to the rest of the State as well as to the whole country, and will in the 
near future attract the attention of Europe, and in fact all parts of the world now 
reached by steam and electricity ; for all these areas of the world will soon be 
within reach of our oyster market, and I propose to show this to this meeting. 

How shall we do it, is the inquiry on every hand, and the answer is, by a broad 
and liberal treatment of the subject. 

To get a'correct view of the oyster question at this time and find out where we 
stand, we must review the past. 

About thirty-eight years ago the oyster fundum was brought to the attention of 
the people of the State as a valuable property from which large amounts of money 
could be derived for the treasury, and at once the public became interested ; the 
war, however, prevented the immediate action of the State. In 1886 the first 
oyster law for revenue was enacted ; others followed from time to time, and each 
was supposed at the time to bring in more revenue ; the execution of the law was 
imperfect under the military government. Soon after Governor Walker was in 1 
augurated the oyster navy was reorganized. At this time my connection with the 
subject commenced, as I was appointed to the command of one of the steamers. 
In addition to the duties required of me by law, I at once commenced to study the 
oyster question as a food product and sought in vain to find the results of study 
by some one in the country. There was nothing in print on this side of the 
Atlantic, but I found that the subject had been scientifically dealt with, after the 
destruction of the natural oyster beds in France and in England. The work done 
in France was by Cost6 and that of England was found in the British Parliamen- 
tary Reports ; these and all other works on the subject I secured, and gave them 
much thought, and applied all information contained in them to the case of Vir- 
ginia. I was convinced that we were following the footsteps of the countries 



PROCEEDINGS OF OYSTER CONVENTION. 39 

mentioned and were destroying our oyster beds. As a warning I made a report to 
the Auditor in 1870, which was printed, recommending that steps be taken to in- 
troduce oyster culture. The report was not noticed, as no danger of decrease in 
the oyster beds was manifested to the public or the 03'stermen. In 1871 I made 
another repor on the subject, which I have before me, in which I compiled statis- 
tics showing the decline in Europe, and recited laws that were enacted to revive the 
oyster beds, and suggested remedies. This report met with no better fate than the 
one that preceded it. I commenced to learn that the oyster was a politician as 
well as an edible fish, and was opposed to any innovations ; in short, that the idea 
of increasing the supply of this food, so that the greatest number might be fed, was 
not thought of, and the time of those who made the laws was occupied in settling 
the contentions among those who were anxious to get all they could day by day. 
regardless of the future. Many efforts were made to get more revenue at each 
session of the legislature, and to more certainly accomplish this end a commission 
was appointed to draw a law that would yield the required money. It was com- 
posed of gentlemen from salt-water Virginia, learned in the law, but the result of 
their labors was less money than ever ; and, in 1874, the efforts to get money were 
abandoned and the navy sold. It left in the State treasury $130,000 above expenses. 
For twelve years succeeding the oysters were put aside from the cares of the State. 
In 1882 the navy was re-established and has been a burden to the State every year 
since, except the last year, when a small sum was raised above expenses by an 
unfair tox on the planter, who started in the business to pay 25 cents per acre, 
which was increased to $1 without notice, or the means to get out of the business, 
which is regarded by oystermen as a great hardship. The last effort to raise 
money, like the others that preceded it, has practically been a failure, and the 
idea of getting a large sum of money from this industry will continue to be so. I 
want it well understood, however, that the oyster interest has still a balance to its 
credit in the State treasury, as the Auditor's books will show. 

There is evidently in the minds of many an idea that a new way to get money is 
now offered ; that the day is about to break, and that the wealth will soon roll in. 
This will prove, like the other predictions, a failure. The air castles built on this 
subject will sink, because they are not on good oyster bottoms. During the twenty- 
eight years in which efforts to obtain revenue have been running, there have been 
before the public many enthusiastic officials in turn who knew how to make the 
oyster yield its wealth, but as yet none have succeeded, and I venture the assertion 
that enough will never be realized in any one year to furnish each inhabitant of 
the State a postage stamp to mail a letter. 

The State may continue on this line, but no good will come of it. 

The standpoint from which their interest ought to be regarded is as a food supply ; 
and to increase it to the greatest point of production possible ; to do this, it must 
be treated as other industries. The survey of the natural beds has now been 
completed and accepted with favor. When I first advocated this plan it was very 
unpopular, and it went so far as to cause meetings of the oystermen to denounce 
it and its author. This goes to show that any step in the proper direction will be 
approved when the people fully understand it. 

The next step is to grant the grounds outside of the natural beds for oyster 
culture, and leave each person untrammelled to do as he thinks best with it ; give the 
best possible title. It would seem that if the State can rent these lands she could 
sell them, and this ought to be, and at no greater price than she has sold to others 
her territory containing valuable gifts of nature in coal, iron, and other metals. 



40 PROCEEDINGS OF OYSTER CONVENTION. 

This liberal treatment will produce oysters in large quantities and put them in 
reach of laboring men as an article of food. The oystermen of Virginia will pro- 
duce oysters at the same price per pound as Western pork, and get rich at it. The 
propagation of oysters is an easy matter, and they grow fast. 

In 1891 I hatched 10,000,000 oysters and attached them to shells previously 
placed on bare bottom at a cost of $100 per acre. 

A new process has been invented and patented by which oysters at a tempera- 
ture below 50 degrees can be kept for sixty days in perfect condition. This is 
by a rivet placed through the bill, so that the oyster cannot lose its liquor. 

Virginia has the best end of Chesapeake Bay to furnish oysters. The supply 
will all be taken, and an immense business can be done ; but the oysters must be 
cheaply grown. The idea of taxing the oyster industry beyond cost of executing 
the law is all wrong, and that should be done economically but efficiently. 

The people should be encouraged to go ahead, by dispelling the idea that they 
are unjustly dealt with : for when people believe this, as our people do, they resent 
it, and it is depressing to the growth of the oyster business. They believe when 
they pay 50 per cent, more on the oysters and shells than is collected from all the 
minerals of the State, and in addition thereto pay heavy license and fee, they are 
paying more than their share, and when this is done with the idea of relieving 
others of their taxes it is not pleasant to them. 

Again, many counties in salt-water Virginia believe that they have been suffi- 
ciently burdened in building railroads, canals, and other public works in the 
State for which they have never had any adequate return, which still rests on 
them in the shape of the public debt. 

A broad and liberal policy to the oystermen must be inaugurated, and they will 
build up salt-water Virginia, and- on the wealth created the State will get ten 
times the tax that she gets now. This will be a constitutional tax, bearing equally 
on all species of property. Until this is done the development will not come. 
Even-handed justice must be meted to all, and the oyster industry must not be an 
exception to the rule. 

Judge Ewell : Mr. Brown thinks there should be no tax upon oysters — that the 
State should derive no revenue from them. As a member from Tidewater Vir- 
ginia, I think differently, but at the same time the revenue that men from the 
western and other sections of the State think could be raised from that source is 
erroneous. The surveys have been made, and while I do not censure any one, 
and do not think it could have been done better, yet I can safely assert that those 
surveys do not approximate the truth in the estimate of the planting ground or 
the natural rock ; because within those surveys there are large areas of mud, 
grounds that are perfectly worthless for propagating oysters, and grounds upon 
which oysters do not grow. The amount of revenue which they might suppose 
cannot be raised. My views are that we should go on with the present law and 
see what amount of revenue can be derived from it after a fair trial ; there may 
be some little points in it which are defective, and if so we can ascertain them 
and adopt a remedy. Last year the State received fifteen or sixteen thousand 
dollars in excess of its expenditures on account of this industry under the present 
law, and we are satisfied in our section that the amount will be doubled when we 
have had time to carry the law into effect. The charts have not been given us, 
and therefore the inspectors cannot survey the planting grounds. I cannot answer 
for all over the same, but in Northampton county not one-fourth of the planting 
grounds have yet been surveyed. 



PROCEEDINGS OF OYSTER CONVENTION. 41 

Alexander E. Warner : I am here to-night as a delegate from the Board of 
Trade of the city of Portsmouth. I was born and reared in the neighborhood of 
the oyster ; my earliest recollection was the oyster ; in fact, I believe my teeth 
were cut on an oyster-shell. I have listened with great pleasure and profit to the 
able papers read before this Convention this afternoon, and I agree with Lieu- 
tenant Winslow that we should make haste slowly. I also agree with the gentle- 
man from Accomac, Mr. Browne, that the oyster should not be made a subject of 
extraordinary taxation; it should be produced as a cheap and nutritious food 
product for the people ; and looking to the carrying out of Lieutenant Winslow's 
views, I have prepared a resolution which I would like to offer on the line of 
entering upon a campaign of education. With your permission I will present the 
resolution : 

Resolved, That a committee be appointed from this body whose duty it shall be 
to compile in a clear, practical and comprehensive manner a pamphlet containing 
an exposition of the great necessity for action looking to the artificial propagation 
of oysters in the waters of this State, and the rebuilding of the depleted beds and 
rocks. 

That said publication shall also contain simple and practical directions of the 
most approved and scientific processes for such artificial propagation, and shall 
also contain comparative statistics as to sums realised from the sale of oysters 
taken from the public grounds and of those taken from grounds practically and 
scientifically worked. 

That said committee prepare a bill providing for the compilation and publica- 
tion of said pamphlet by the State of Virginia, and urge its enactment by the 
General Assembly. 

That it is the conviction of the convention that we cannot continue to reap 
unless we sometimes sow ; and that, in our opinion, it is the imperative duty of 
the State to at once and energetically take up the matter of oyster culture. 

This resolution met with some opposition from Mr. Lee, who said he did not 
think there could be a committee appointed by this Convention, or any other, 
who could go so deeply into the oyster question as that resolution would call for 
in the short space of time intervening until the day on which the Legislature 
would probably act on the oyster question and form intelligently any measures 
which would meet the demands of this vital question. 

Captain Brown offered as a substitute that the proceedings of this meeting when 
published be presented to the General Assembly, which was carried. 

Judge Garnett : If you are going to suggest anything to the members of the 
Legislature, I suggest that they adopt the bright and comprehensive views 
expressed by Lieutenant Winslow in his discussion of the oyster interest this 
evening as their guidance for any legislation on the subject. I endorse every 
word that has been said by Lieutenant Winslow on this subject. I would offer as 
a resolution that the splendid address of Lieutenant Winslow be specially com- 
mended to the Legislature. I will endorse it, and I believe all my people will. 
We will cross every T and dot every I of it. 

Judge Ewell : I have very little to say, because I did not hear it — or but very 
little of it— and I certainly could not endorse anything that I did not hear. But 
there was one point, as I understand, which I especially could not endorse, and 



42 PROCEEDINGS OF OYSTER CONVENTION. 

that is the statement that the natural rocks could not be replenished. We are 
doing that very rapidly by making the season shorter and enforcing the law. 
That part, at least, I could not endorse, and I could not endorse anything I did 
not hear. 

Judge Garnett: I am very glad to hear that the natural beds are being replen- 
ished in your section of the country, but it is not the case in mine. 

J. D. Armstrong : I have sat here and listened to a great deal of talk on the 
oyster question. I believe that Lieutenant Winslow is the only one who took a 
really practical view of it. I am a practical oysterman, both packer and planter, 
and I have come up here to learn something about the oyster business. Take the 
market of Norfolk to-day, and it is demoralized. What causes that I am at a loss 
to say. Four years ago, when I was induced to go into the oyster business, I had 
taken a theoretical view of it and"figured it up. To-day I expected to have owned 
a yacht, but I have hardly got a row-boat. So that is the way the oyster business 
finds me to-night. I put $25,000 into the business, and I don't know where I will 
wind up. I have talked to my people down there, and they are satisfied in part 
with the law as it now exists. What we want, gentlemen, is protection. When a 
man comes on our planting ground and we take him before a magistrate, the 
magistrate renders his decision, the man takes an appeal and carries it before a 
jury. What does that jury say? Twenty negroes will come up there and say 
that man has a perfect right to go on that ground—" My father worked on there 
as an oyster rock." There is a doubt in the mind of the jury, and the prisoner is 
discharged. The result is that the man has not only stolen your oysters, but you 
have had to pay the cost of the court in trying to protect your interests. We have 
got some practical oystermen here to-night, and I want to hear from them on this 
question. We would like to get some guarantee of our ground. We pay $1 per 
acre and are willing to pay it. All we want to know is, that when we pay that 
dollar per acre, that what we have put there we will have a chance to take up 
again. My instructions, gentlemen, to my watchman are not to lay hands on a 
man, but shoot him when within my stakes. After wounding him I wpuld rather 
fight him with air than fight him in a court for stealing my oysters. So that is 
the way the affair finds us in Norfolk to-day, and the packers of Norfolk cannot 
compete with those of Maryland in prices. To-day there is a difference of ten 
cents a gallon between Maryland oysters and Virginia oysters, and the main cause 
of that is that your planters cannot get protection whereby they can go ahead and 
bring all their stuff into market. Lots of our people are afraid to plant for fear 
that they will never get back what they put down. In the first bed I planted I 
set out 6,000 bushels ; I got up 2,000 bushels ; I thought there was a mistake. The 
next year I planted 15,000. I don't know how many I am going to get up. And 
that is the way it has been all the while. What we want is some law which will 
protect us in our rights as planters. We are willing to pay you for that, but don't 
put any more taxes on us, as we are laboring hard now as planters. 

Judge Henley: I hate to take issue with my distinguished friend from Mathews, 
but it seems to me we would err in singling out the address of one person when 
we have been addressed by others who, I am sure, have greatly edified us. I 
represent in part the oyster planters of James City ; our people are very well 
satisfied with the present oyster law ; they think the Legislature has taken the 
right step, but they want security in tenure ; they want to know that these lands 



PROCEEDINGS OF OYSTER CONVENTION. 43 

they have leased they can hold ; they have ascertained that fact and are satisfied. 
They are willing to pay the tax or license, whichever you please to call it — a tax 
it is, and a big one — but they are willing to pay it if they can be protected, and 
they want to see the present law enforced. I could not help thinking, when I 
heard the discussions this evening, and statements were made as to how the oyster 
industry was increasing in New York and Connecticut, that all those oysters did 
not come out of their oyster beds. I know that as many oysters are carried away 
from Virginia as are left here. "We think these laws should be amended in some 
respects, and we think that there are two ways of looking at some of the ideas 
advanced by some of the speakers this evening. There has been mention here 
this evening of the larceny committed on the oysters. We know it is the most 
prolific object of larceny, and I think it should be made a felony to steal oysters. 
I think with this amendment and one or two others, which I will not tire the 
Convention with suggesting, the present law is a very good law as it is, and we 
would like to see it preserved as it is. 

J. F. Bonewell : As Inspector of the Twenty-eighth District of the county of 
Warwick, I would like to say that in my district it is impossible to enforce the 
law. Enforcing the culling feature of the law means with us simply to abandon 
and give up the industry, and that would be destruction to all the rocks, 
as they would become so infested with muscles as to ruin them. As Judge 
Henley says, the present law is a very good law, but it needs some amend- 
ments. Under the present system a planter owning 100 acres or more on Hampton 
Bar has a right to dredge his oysters. Change the locality only a few miles and 
there he may own 250 acres, but he has no right to dredge his oysters. I say the 
planters of James river should have the same right as the planter of Tidewater to 
cultivate his oysters in the way most profitable to him. In those two cases I say 
I think it is necessary for the law to be amended. 

The Chair then announced that the question was on the motion of Judge Garnett 
to recommend the address of Lieutenant Winslow to the General Assembly. 

Mr. Lee moved that the resolution be laid on the table. 

Lieut. Winslow stated that he appreciated the compliment paid him by Judge 
Garnett in suggesting that his address be brought specially before the General 
Assembly, but that it would be very disagreeable to him to have his address dis- 
tinguished in any way as apart from the addresses of other gentlemen who have 
offered papers and read them before the Convention, and he hoped that no such 
distinction would be made. 

The question was then put by the Chair, and resulted in a vote to lay the reso- 
lution on the table. 

Chair . There is a desire on the part of some gentlemen here to hear further 
from Lieutenant Winslow on the oyster question. By laying the resolution on 
the table, it was by no means the intention of this conference to lay Lieutenant 
Winslow on the table, and I believe I voice the unanimous sentiment of the con- 
ference when I say that we shall be very glad to have him get on his feet and give 
us further information, the wealth of which we know he possesses. 

Lieut. Winslow : I think I have already occupied a vast amount of your time, 
and I hardly know how to elaborate anything further on the line upon which I 



44 PROCEEDINGS OF OYSTER CONVENTION. 

addressed you to-day. The only principles I desired to inculcate or to bring to 
your attention here this afternoon were, first, that the natural beds in no State can 
support the industry. History shows that. Secondly, that a barren territory 
which can be improved ought to be improved ; and, thirdly, that every possible 
inducement should be given to people to improve it. And, as a means to this end, 
you cannot successfully achieve the result if you run much in advance of the 
sentiment of your own people. I would say, for instance, as regards North Caro- 
lina, it was my effort there when I made the surveys of the beds to give the people 
of the seaboard counties the benefit of all the experience I had and all the knowl- 
edge I had to this extent : that in every little place I went I got the oystermen 
and the people who were interested in the matter together and gave a sort of in- 
formal lecture, much along the line of what I have been talking about this after- 
noon, explaining how the oysters live and the condition of the industry and the 
advantages of a new course of procedure. There was a new movement, to come 
from the bottom up and not from the top down. We went then to the Legislature 
in 1887, and they were good enough to adopt my recommendation. We had in 
the State then certain machinery for the entry and occupancy of public grounds, 
but before we allowed any occupation of it we required that the natural beds of 
the State should be surveyed. That was the work I was then engaged upon. 
When they were surveyed and mapped, three commissioners were appointed to 
lay off what we called the public grounds of the State, and these public grounds 
were to include the natural beds and such territory adjacent thereto as would be 
sufficient for the natural expansion of those beds. The Commissioners having 
laid off these public grounds, they were required to publish their decisions in five 
places in the county, and in two newspapers having a circulation in the State, for 
a period of twenty or thirty days. Any person who objected to the decision of the 
Commissioners as to these areas or limits of the public grounds, was at liberty to 
file a protest with the clerk of the Superior Court, to be transmitted to the Board 
of Commissioners. It was my object not to have the responsibility of laying off 
these limits myself, and to have the aid, both for myself and the Commissioners, 
of every person having any knowledge of the natural oyster beds in the State, or 
the particular county. These protests being filed under the law, it was necessary for 
the Commissioners on twenty days notice to have a hearing of the protest ; the 
protest might be made that the Commissioners included too much in the public 
grounds, or that they had omitted a natural bed ; some protests were made — and 
they were the principal ones — that too much ground had been taken in ; the next 
one was that some natural beds had been omitted. These protests having been 
heard, the Commissioners were required, after a certain period — twenty days, I 
think — to come to a decision, which would be final unless reversed when appealed 
to the Superior Court of the county. So you see the process we adopted down 
there was first to locate the natural beds ; second, to have a Board of Commis- 
sioners appointed by the State Board of Agriculture to lay off the public grounds, 
which should include these natural beds, and to require any person who thought 
the Commissioners were in error to come up and say so, or forever hold his peace. 
Those requirements of the law were carried out, and upon the final decision and 
announcement, publication was made in five different places in the county, and in 
the public press, stating the area, location, and limits of the several public 
grounds ; that this was the official decision of the Commissioners, and that the re- 
maining area — area not included in the limits of the public grounds — was subject 
to entry as provided by the law. We then went on to adopt the machinery which 
had already existed for the entrance of lands, in the entry of these grounds under 



PROCEEDINGS OF OYSTER CONVENTION. 45 

water. These grounds then becoming subject to entry, any person desiring entry 
went before the Entry Taker in the county ; filed his application ; paid his fee, 
and received his warrant from the Entry Taker to the Engineer appointed by the 
Shell Fish Commissioners ; that engineer makes a survey of the grounds and lo- 
cates it on the maps ; he locates it by the approved method of the Hydrographic 
Surveys ; it is necessary that every corner should have reference to some estab- 
lished mark on the land. The Engineer having made this survey, forwards his 
certificate to the Secretary of State, giving a description of the ground, and certify- 
ing that it does not include any of the public grounds of the State. The law pro- 
vides that if it does include any of the public grounds, no grant shall be issued, 
and no grant shall be issued except in accordance with the certificate of this Engi- 
neer. Upon the Engineer filing this certificate with the Secretary of State, and a 
copy of it being forwarded to the applicant, it then rests with the applicant to 
send 25 cents per acre for the ground and the fees for issuing the grant. The Sec- 
retary of State then issues the grant under the Great Seal of the State, authenti- 
cated by the Governor, and the applicant is required to record it within three 
months in the county in which the land lies. That grant gives him not a fee sim- 
ple right, but a perpetual franchise to the growing and cultivation of shell fish on 
that particular area, with this proviso : that he shall make a bona fide effort within 
five years after the issuance of the grant, to improve that area ; otherwise, it be- 
comes null and void. "Well, as I said this afternoon, about 1889 or 1890, when the 
law finally got into operation, a very large area was entered by different parties ; 
some entered ground out in the middle of the sound. 

Major Hotchkiss : What is the depth of the water out in the Sound ? 

Lieut. Winslow : It varies from two to four fathoms — say from twelve to twenty- 
four or thirty feet. 

Mr. Lee : What Sound is that, sir ? 

Lieut. Winslow : Pamlico Sound. 

.By Member: What is the nature of the bottom? 

Lieut. Winslow : It varies a good deal ; there is some sand and some mud. 

Capt. Browne : Can you tell me the density of the water in Pamlico Sound, as 
compared with that of Chesapeake Bay? 

Lieut. Winslow : I can hardly remember it, but if you will write to the Secre- 
tary of Agriculture for my report, you can get it ; or you can get it from the Coast 
Survey ; one was made in 1887, and the other in 1889. 

Capt. Browne : There is one point which I think has not been brought out, and 
I would like to hear something on it. It has been represented that Virginia has a 
large area of oyster grounds that can all be used for oyster purposes. Now, the 
density of the water has a great deal to do with whether you can get the young 
oysters down on the bottom or not. In very salt water oysters can onlv strike 
where the water is very shoal, or where the specific gravity is very great. 



46 PROCEEDINGS OF OYSTER CONVENTION. 

Lieut. Winslow : I am not so sure of that ; I think the data is rather insufficient. 
For instance, I found oystere in Chesapeake Bay in nine or ten fathoms of water, 
and I found them in Long Island Sound in ten fathoms of water. 

Capt. Browne : You are acquainted with the coast down along North Carolina. 
Now, in those waters, there is no natural rock below low water ; the density of the 
water has always been given as the reason for their not going down deeper. In 
Chesapeake Bay, the water is lighter, and they can get down lower- -but you are 
not satisfied on that point ? 

Lieut. Winslow : Not as to the question of density. The theory that the den- 
sity is so great that the oyster cannot get down on the bottom, I think needs a 
little more investigation. I don't say it is not so, but I am not at all sure that 
it is so. 

I would like to say something about the success we are meeting with in North 
Carolina, but it is rather early to talk about that just now, as we have just started — 

Major Hotchkiss: When did you start? 

Lieut. Winslow : The movement started about 1890, but it will take four or five 
years, after planting, to bring the oysters to maturity. I thought it would take 
about three, but I found I had under-estimated the time, and that it would hardly 
do for anybody going into business to accept the experience of the Connecticut 
people. Take the maximum time, and that is about five years. This winter, our 
fruit is about ripe for cutting, and if Providence had been kind enough to freeze 
up James River and Chesapeake Bay, I think we North Carolinians would have 
made some money ; but it costs us nothing to keep our oysters on the ground there, 
so we are just resting on our oars. 

Something was said about the natural beds ; I did not mean to be understood 
this afternoon as saying that natural beds could not be improved, because that is 
quite a possibility ; but they cannot be improved without restricting the fishery, 
and if you restrict the fishery it reduces the supply, and if you reduce the supply, 
you are worse off than you are now. I do not mean to say you could not improve 
the natural beds, because you can improve them, as well as you can improve any 
others ; the trouble with the natural beds is that they are suffering from the taking 
off of too many brood oysters ; it is like calling off the bulls, and leaving the cows 
behind. I agree with my friend from Portsmouth, when he says it is easier for 
the oyster planter to clear a man of a capital offence, than it is to convict him of a 
petty larceny ; that is about the truth of it — I have been there. 

Judge Henley : .Assuming that there are 600,000 acres of oyster grounds owned 
by the State of Virginia, are you prepared to express an opinion as to what pro- 
portion of those 600,000 acres are susceptible of cultivation to-day ? 

Lieut. Winslow : No, sir; my examination has been a most cursory one, and 
that was made fifteen years ago. How large a proportion of that 600,000 acres is 
really susceptible of cultivation, requires a very careful investigation ; you may 
find an acre here which will grow oysters, and on the next acre to it you may find 
that oysters will not grow at all. It requires a very, very careful scrutiny. 

Judge Henley : I move that we now adjourn. 



PROCEEDINGS OF OYSTER CONVENTION. - 47 

Chair : Before putting- the motion I wish to say to the Convention that I feel 
very grateful to you for the honor you have done me in permitting me to preside 
over the deliberations of this assembly, and for the opportunity given me to enjoy 
the pleasure of being with you during your entire session. I trust you gentlemen 
will carry away with you pleasant recollections of Richmond, and that this may 
be the beginning of what will be something practical and useful to all of us in the 
development of the oyster industry. I know that our friends from Tidewater 
section will be more rejoiced than anybody else in the Commonwealth to have the 
help of anybody who will give them aid in that direction, and it was with the 
hope that this conference might result in some wise suggestions that prompted the 
Chamber of Commerce to call it. We are glad you came, gentlemen, and we trust 
we may have the pleasure of meeting at some time in the future, when we will 
rejoice at the good results of our meeting to-day. 

Mr. Lee offered a resolution of thanks to the Chairman for the able manner in 
which he had presided over the business of the Convention, which was unani- 
mously adopted. 

The Convention then adjourned sine die. 



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